| The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches Contributor(s): James, Wendy (Editor), Mills, David (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1845200748 ISBN-13: 9781845200749 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $44.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2005 Annotation: This book explores the relevance of classical ideas in the anthropology of time to the way we understand history, participate in the events around us, and experience our lives.The authors reflect on how we should interpret evidence about the distant past, and how far the structuring of social time is a human universal. They also consider whether anthropology itself has been so oriented to the present it has still to develop ways of dealing with temporality. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - General - Social Science | Sociology - Social Theory |
| Dewey: 304.23 |
| LCCN: 2005295100 |
| Series: ASA Monographs (Berg Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.77" H x 6.18" W x 9.14" (1.28 lbs) 392 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book explores the relevance of classical ideas in the anthropology of time tothe way we understand history, participate in the events around us, and experienceour lives. Time is not just an abstract principle we live by or a local cultural construct: it is shaped, punctuated, organized, and suffered in complex ways by real people negotiating their lives and relations with others. Space may be opened up for politics, violence or revolutionary change within the framework of ceremonial markers of social time: holy days, festivals and carnivals. People create and recreate patterns in the way they imagine the past, present and future at such moments, through material objects, language, symbolic action and bodily experience. The rhythms of social life, including periodic episodes of sacred or special time, interact with 'historical events' in strange ways. They are fundamental not only to the human condition but to the making andremembering of history, as well as to what we recognize as the unexpected or abnormal. The Qualities of Time brings anthropologists and archaeologists together in a new conversation about the 'patterns' of our understanding and experience of time. The authors reflect on how we should interpret evidence about the distant past, andhow far the structuring of social time is a human universal. They also consider whether anthropology itself has been so oriented to the present it has still to develop ways of dealing with temporality. The interactions of time-structures, ceremonials, and specific historical events, including violence inspired by the millennium, are interrogated. The experience of individuals who feel the times are for them 'out of joint' is also examined. By combining socio-cultural, philosophical and historical approaches, thisthought-provoking book moves anthropological debates about time's qualities wellbeyond existing studies.This book explores the relevance of classical ideas in the anthropology of time toth |
Contributor Bio(s): James, Wendy: - Wendy James is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.Mills, David: - David Mills lectures at the University of Birmingham. He has just finished a book on the political history of British social anthropology. |