Description
Book SynopsisTwelve leading anthropologists offer candid reflections on the influence of particular philosophers on their thought and ethnographic practices. They relate the philosophers to matters such as how to respond to the suffering of the other, how concepts arise in the give and take of everyday life, and how to be attuned to the world through the senses.
Trade Review“Resisting the impulse to recognize one discipline in service of the other,
The Ground Between collects ethnographic writing that sharpens dialogue between anthropology and philosophy.” -- Paul Schissel * Anthropology and Humanism *
“
The Ground Between is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature on the relationship between anthropology and philosophy. It convincingly encourages us to seek new ways for two disciplines concerned with an important common subject -- the nature and limits of the human -- to talk with, rather than past, each other.” -- Michele M. Moody-Adams * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
“The authors do a consistently good job of blending original research with primary source material to present a holistic picture of the interplay between the disciplines. Vincent Crapanzano does a masterful job elucidating epistemological philosophies through a series of ethnographic vignettes. On the whole, I found the anthology challenging in places but enjoyable and thought provoking. The diversity of writing styles and approaches to anthropology keep the reader's attention while also making it possible to excerpt chapters for assigned reading.” -- Misty Luminais * International Social Science Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction. Experiments between Anthropology and Philosophy: Affinities and Antagonisms / Veena Das, Michael Jackson, Arthur Kleinman, and Bhrigupati Singh vii
1. Ajàlá's Head: Reflections on Anthropology and Philosophy in a West African Setting / Michael Jackson 27
2. The Parallel Lives of Philosophy and Anthropology / Didier Fassin 50
3. The Difficulty of Kindness: Boundaries, Time, and the Ordinary / Clara Han 71
4. Ethnography in the Way of Theory / João Biehl 94
5. The Search for Wisdom: Why William James Still Matters / Arthur Kleinman 119
6. Eavesdropping on Bourdieu's Philosophers / Ghassan Hage 138
7. How Concepts Make the World Look Different: Affirmative and Negative Genealogies of Thought / Bhrigupati Singh 159
8. Philosophia and Anthropologia: Reading alongside Benjamin in Yazd, Derrida in Qum, Arendt in Tehran / Michael M. J. Fischer 188
9. Ritual Disjunctions: Ghosts, Philosophy, and Anthropology / Michael Pruett 218
10. Henri Bergson in Highland Yemen / Steven C. Caton 234
11. Must We Be Bad Epistemologists? Illusions of Transparency, the Opaque Other, and Interpretive Foibles / Vincent Crapanzano 254
12. Action, Expression, and Everyday Life: Recounting Household Events / Veena Das 279
References 307
Contributors 329
Index
