Partial Connections by Marilyn Strathern - 9780759107595

Partial ConnectionsAuthor(s): Marilyn Strathern\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: AltaMira Press, United States\nImprint: AltaMira Press\nISBN-13: 9780759107595, 978-0759107595\nSynopsis\nUpdated with a new Preface, this seminal work challenges the routine ways in which anthropologists have thought about the complexity and quantity of their materials. Marilyn Strathern focuses on a problem normally regarded as commonplace; that of scale and proportion. She combines a wide-ranging interest in current theoretical issues with close attention to the cultural details of social life, attempting to establish proportionality between them. Strathern gives equal weight to two areas of contemporary debate: The difficulties inherent in anthropologically representing complex societies, and the future of cross-cultural comparison in a field where 'too much' seems known. The ethnographic focus of this book emphasizes the context through which Melanesianists have managed the complexity of their own acco.