Description
Book Synopsis Contrary to the negative assessments of the social order that have become prevalent in the media since 9/11, this wide-ranging collection of essays, mostly by social anthropologists, focuses instead on the enormous social creativity being invested as collective identities are reconfigured. Using fieldwork findings drawn from Africa, Asia, and Europe, special emphasis is placed on the reformulation of ethnic and gender relationships and identities in the cultural, social, political, and religious realms of public life. Under what circumstances does trust arise, paving the way for friendship, collegiality, knowledge creation, national unity, or emergence of leadership? How is social life constructed as a collective endeavour? Does the means towards sociability become its end? And what can be said about the agency and collegiality of women? The inspiration for examining these conundrums is the work and persona of Shirley Ardener, to whom the volume is dedicated.
Contributors: Jonathan Benthall, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, Gina Buijs, Sandra Burman, Hilary Callan, Gaynor Cohen, Janette Davies, Tamara Dragadze, Ronnie Frankenberg, Peter Geschiere, Kirsten Hastrup, Paula Heinonen, Maria Jaschok, Grazyna Kubica, Rhian Loudon, Sharon Macdonald, Zdzislaw Mach, Fiona Moore, Judith Okely, Lidia D. Sciama, Shui Jingjun, Cecillie Swaisland, Jacqueline Waldren, Jonathan Webber.
Table of Contents Preface
Introduction: The Artistry of Social Life
Deborah Fahy Bryceson
PART I: FASHIONING IDENTITIES
Chapter 1. Changing Cultures, Changing Rooms: Fashioning Identities and Anthropological Research
Sharon Macdonald
Chapter 2. Identity at Play: Individuals, Characters, and Theatres of Action
Kirsten Hastrup
Chapter 3. Constructing Identities in a Post-Communist Society: Ethnic, National, and European
Zdzisław Mach
Chapter 4. Making Sense of the Past: Reflections on Jewish Historical Consciousness
Jonathan Webber
Chapter 5. A Sense of People and Place: The Chapel and Language in Sustaining Welsh Identity
Gaynor Cohen
Chapter 6. Towards an Ethnography of Colleagueship
Hilary Callan
PART II: GENDER AGENCY AND NETWORKS
Chapter 7. Thinking the Unheard, Writing the Unwritten: Reflecting on Marginality, Ethnography, and Texts
Maria Jaschok in dialogue with Shui Jingjun
Chapter 8. The Women’s Movement: The Formative Years, 1850–1930
Cecillie Swaisland
Chapter 9. A Good Lady, Androgynous Angel, and Intrepid Woman: Maria Czaplicka in Feminist Profile
Grażyna Kubica
Chapter 10. ‘Ritual Sisters’ or Female Rulers? Gender and Chiefship Revisited in Southern Africa
Gina Buijs
Chapter 11. Revolting, Revolutionary, and Rebellious Women: Symbolic Disruption of Traditional Femininity and the Liberation of Femineity and Other Muted Identities
Rhian Loudon and Ronnie Frankenberg
Chapter 12. What Women Really Want: Gender, Ethnicity, and Job Expectations on an Automobile Factory Assembly Line
Fiona Moore
Chapter 13. Can You Call This Fieldwork? September in Venice
Lidia D. Sciama
Chapter 14. Gendered Lessons in Ivory Towers
Judith Okely
AFTERWORDS: IN CELEBRATION OF SHIRLEY ARDENER
Gendering Oxford: Shirley Ardener and Cross-Cultural Research
Janette Davies and Jacqueline Waldren
Shirley Ardener’s Habitus
Jonathan Benthall
Circumstance, Personality, and Anthropology
Tamara Dragadze
Shirley in My Mind
Grażyna Kubica
Titi ikoli in the Academy
Sharon Macdonald
Going the Extra Mile
Sandra Burman
Her Powers of Persuasion
Fiona Moore
Shirley Ardener: Mentor and Friend
Paula Heinonen
The African Connection in Oxford
Gina Buijs
Shirley’s African Roots
Cecillie Swaisland
Returning to ‘The Mountain’
Peter Geschiere
Shirley’s Magic
Jonathan Webber
List of Published Works by Shirley Ardener
Notes on the Contributors
Index
