Description
Book SynopsisTraces the anthropological study of sex from the eighteenth century onwards, focusing primarily on social and cultural anthropology and the work done by researchers in North America and Great Britain. This title argues that the sexuality of those whom anthropologists studied has been conscripted into Western discourses about sex.
Trade Review"Anthropologists A. Lyons. . . . and H. Lyons. . . . fill a crucial gap in the literature of intellectual history as well as of anthropology."—
Choice“A valuable addition to the literature on anthropology as cultural critique, and anthropological intersections with the colonial project. . . . An impressive and comprehensive piece of research. . . . A necessary reference book for all anthropologists who are interested in sexuality.”—
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History“Andrew and Harriet Lyons have drawn on over two decades of study in and about Africa to craft this impressive, thought-provoking book. They analyze numerous examples of the sometimes shockingly shoddy scholarship that was used to make (but also sometimes to refute) racist, misogynist, and homophobic arguments about sexuality to North American and British audiences.
Irregular Connections should help grid us non-anthropologists with a more rigorously critical understanding of their (and by extension, our) disciplines.”—Marc Epprecht,
International Journal of African Historical Studies“Given anthropology’s focus on the intersections between the biological and the cultural one might reasonably expect that it would have a lot to say about sexuality. But instead, anthropology has been accused of avoiding sexuality. . . .
Irregular Connections offers a useful corrective to these accounts. . . . Because of the breadth of their review and its historical depth, it is sure to become a common reference for those whose work in sexuality has a much more contemporary slant.”—Ellen Lewin,
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences“The Lyonses have provided us with a much-needed volume on the history of sexuality and the ways in which Western analysts have used non-Western cultural ‘others’ to support their own ideologies of sex and power. . . . Its publication works toward legitimizing the academic study of sex and sexuality and challenging anthropologists and other scholars to think more self-consciously about representations of sexuality, historical and otherwise.”—
Journal of the History of Sexuality Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1. Three Images of Primitive Sexuality and the Definition of Species; 2. Sex and the Refuge for Destitute Truth; 3. Matriarchy, Marriage by Capture, and Other Fantasies; 4. The Reconstruction of "Primitive Sexuality" at the Fin de Siecle; 5. "Old Africa Hands"; 6. Malinowski as "Reluctant Sexologist"; 7. Margaret Mead, the Future of Language, and Lost Opportunities; 8. The "Silence"; 9. Sex in Contemporary Anthropology Conclusions and Unfinished Business
