Changing Fields of Anthropology: From Local to Global

This book explores major shifts and reorientations in the recent history of American Anthropology, reflecting the author's vision of what anthropology is and what it has the potential to become. The title phrase 'changing fields' can be read in two ways: One meaning refers to how, since the mid-1960s, the larger national and global social, intellectual, and political fields within which American anthropology is situated have profoundly changed. The second meaning refers to how, in response to these changing fields, the author, like many other anthropologists, changed the locations of his fieldwork along with his research problems and theoretical perspectives. The book engages three fundamental intellectual-political challenges that American anthropology is destined to confront (or at its peril, avoid): becoming more self-reflexive, achieving theoretical and methodological holism, and defense of universal human rights.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Part I: Fieldwork in the Classic Mode Chapter 2 The Concept ofAire andSusto: Symbolic Representations of Perceived Social and Geographic Environment Chapter 3 A Very Bad Disease of the Arms Chapter 4 Drunkenness and Religious Conversion in a Mexican Village Chapter 5 La Trucha: A Short Story Part 6 Part II: Transitional Fieldwork in the Border Area Chapter 7 From the Invisible Hand to the Visible Feet: Anthropological Studies of Migration and Development Chapter 8 Our Misunderstood Terrorists Chapter 9 Spiritualist Healing in Mexico Chapter 10 Oral Performance by Mexican Spiritualists in Possession Trance Chapter 11 Integration of the Mixteca and the Western U.S.-Mexico Border Region via Migratory Wage Labor Part 12 Part III: Transnational and Practical Anthropology Chapter 13 The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism Chapter 14 Mixtec Political Consciousness: From Passive to Active Resistance Chapter 15 Borders and Boundaries of the State and Self at the End of Empire Chapter 16 Mixtec Ethnicity: Social Identity, Political Consciousness, and Political Activism Chapter 17 Class and Identity: The Jujitsu of Domination and Resistance in Oaxacalifornia Chapter 18 The Race to Deterritorialize in the Game of Value

About the Author :
Michael Kearney is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.

Review :
This is a welcome collection that will prove useful for anthropological research across the changing borders and indigenous struggles of this hemisphere.