Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, And Effects (Methodology and History in Anthropology)

Inspired by existential thought, but using ethnographic methods, Jackson explores a variety of compelling topics, including 9/11, episodes from the war in Sierra Leone and its aftermath, the marginalization of indigenous Australians, the application of new technologies, mundane forms of ritualization, the magical use of language, the sociality of violence, the prose of suffering, and the discourse of human rights. Throughout this compelling work, Jackson demonstrates that existentialism, far from being a philosophy of individual being, enables us to explore issues of social existence and coexistence in new ways, and to theorise events as the sites of a dynamic interplay between the finite possibilities of the situations in which human beings find themselves and the capacities they yet possess for creating viable forms of social life. Michael Jackson is a graduate of the Universities of Auckland (New Zealand and Cambridge (UK), and has, for many years, carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Sierra Leone and Aboriginal Australia. The author of numerous books of anthropology, including the prize-winning Paths Toward a Clearing and At Home in the World, he has also published five books of poetry and two novels. Michael Jackson has taught in his native New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Denmark, where he is presently Professor of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. "Inspired by existential thought, but using ethnographic methods, Michael Jackson explores a variety of contemporary topics, including 9/11, episodes from the war in Sierra Leone and its aftermath, the marginalization of indigenous Australians, the application of new technologies, mundane forms of ritualization, the magical use of language, the sociality of violence, the prose of suffering, and the discourse of human rights. Throughout this compelling work, Jackson demonstrates that existentialism, far from being a philosophy of individual being, enables us to explore issues of social existence and coexistence in new ways, and to theorise events as the sites of a dynamic interplay between the finite possibilities of the situations in which human beings find themselves and the capacities they possess for creating viable forms of social life."--BOOK JACKET. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE: THE STRUGGLE FOR BEING Chapter 1 THE COURSE OF AN EVENT Chapter 2 THE SPACE OF APPEARANCES Chapter 3 VIOLENCE AND INTERSUBJECTIVE REASON Chapter 4 CUSTOM AND CONFLICT IN SIERRA LEONE: AN ESSAY ON ANARCHY Chapter 5 WHAT’S IN A NAME? AN ESSAY ON THE POWER OF WORDS Chapter 6 MUNDANE RITUAL Chapter 7 BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE CRITIQUE OF GLOBALISATION Chapter 8 FAMILIAR AND FOREIGN BODIES Chapter 9 THE PROSE OF SUFFERING Chapter 10 WHOSE HUMAN RIGHTS? Chapter 11 EXISTENTIAL IMPERATIVES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX