Stanley R. Barrett's Anthropology has long been a premiere sourcebook for students, providing a comprehensive overview of both theory and method in the discipline. In this updated second edition, Barrett's discussion of the origins and evolution of anthropology remains, augmented by sections addressing recent changes and ongoing questions in the field. The second edition of Anthropology adds important new material on questions of culture versus power, Max Weber's thought, the potential of applied anthropology, and the rise of public anthropology, while briefly touching on the anthropology of globalization. As in the previous edition, Barrett remains committed to exploring the impact of postmodernism on the practice and theory of anthropology, positing that it is a formless and ultimately short-lived approach. Including case studies to demonstrate real-world applications of the theories discussed, Barrett's Anthropology remains an essential text for students and teachers of anthropology.
The second phase centred around the 1960s, as new theories sprang up and methods were refined in order to cope with doubts that a scientific study of culture had been established, and with the recognition that change and conflict were as prevalent as stability and harmony. The third phase began in the 1970s and continues today, dominated by postmodernism and feminist anthropology. One of my central arguments will be that beginning in phase two, and growing rapidly during phase three, a gap has emerged between our theories and our methods. For most of the history of anthropology, our methods have talked the language of science.
In recent years the concept of power has soared to the top of the anthropological agenda, while the concept of culture has been found inadequate in understanding the contemporary world. The purposes of this study are to explain why power has become a central interest in the discipline, to evaluate the explanatory potential of power, to demonstrate how to analyze power in the ethnographic context, and to consider whether the culture concept can be salvaged. In chapter one the process by which the profile of power became elevated as a result of globalization is analyzed; included here is the critique of culture. In chapter two, a broad overview of the conception of power from early political anthropology to key works in philosophy, political science, and political sociology is attempted. Some anthropologists have recently tried to rescue the culture concept; this is the focus of chapter three. Although the argument in this study is that power is fundamentally important, it would be a mistake to think that power is any less ambiguous than culture or any other concept; thus, in chapter four it is shown that for each of 20 major assumptions about power, there is a plausible counter-assumption. Chapter five ties the study together by exploring the debates about power in the context of ethnography. The study ends with a postscript on the terrorist attacks on America of September 11, 2001—a poignant reminder that culture and power sometimes intersect to produce human tragedy on a grand scale.
‘God is a racist’—so goes a statement published in the literature of the Western Guard, a white-supremacist, anti-semitic group in Toronto. It is one of a number of racist organizations that have sprung up in Canada since the Second World War. Stanley Barrett points out in this disquieting study that although many of the principles of such organizations are offensive to the vast majority of Canadians, they represent a growing part of a broader political phenomenon that has recently surfaced in numerous nations. In examining the rise of right wing extremism in Canada, a nation with a traditional reputation for tolerance, Barrett considers a wide range of political convictions, from confessed fascists to essentially ordinary, law-abiding, but highly conservative individuals who are deeply concerned about the future of Western Christian civilization. Barrett’s study, grounded in a scientific tradition that has regularly exposed racial myths, is guided by humanist values that celebrate individual worth. It sheds new light on a growing phenomenon that threatens those values.
Innovative and often controversial, Barrett's study ranges over the entire scope of anthropological theory. It provides a fresh interpretation of the history of theory and mounts an alternative perspective, built around dialectics, that is eminently suitable to post-colonial anthropology. He argues that anthropological theory has failed to be cumulative. It has been characterized by oscillation and repetition – theoretical orientations have appeared and disappeared, only to be discovered once again. Addressing numerous conceptual contradictions which have never been resolved, he introduces novel concepts such as salvage theory and backward theory, and argues that in many respects anthropological theory resembles the structuralists interpretation of myth. Social life, he asserts, is inherently contradictory, although concealed by numerous mechanisms, most of which reinforce the status quo. Attacking the illusion of simplicity which has dominated positivistic approaches and the out-dated identification of anthropology with non-Western, primitive, and tribal societies, Barrett contends that power and privilege everywhere should be the basic concerns of anthropological inquiry.
Paradise concentrates on the transformed class system of one community in rural Ontario. In a comparison of the decade following the First World War and the 1980s, Stanley R. Barrett analyses the changing face and structure of a town as it has had to adapt to modern social and economic realities.
This book focuses on the broad implications of the transformation of Canada from a peacekeeping to a war-making nation during the Conservative Party's recent decade in power. Funds were poured into the Canadian Forces, and a newly militarized nation found itself entrenched in conflicts around the globe. For decades, Canada had played a leading role in UN peacekeeping, and when the Cold War ended, the prospect of international harmony was infectious. Yet in short order hostilities erupted in the failed states of Rwanda, Somalia, and the Balkans; terrorism - including 9/11 - raised its head; and Iraq and Afghanistan became war zones. In the face of these immense challenges, the UN was dismissed by its opponents as irrelevant. Structured around an anti-war perspective, The Lamb and the Tiger critically examines the ageless genetic and more recent cultural (civilizational) explanations of war, concluding with a close look at the impact of war and right-wing politics on women and Indigenous peoples. The Lamb and the Tiger encourages Canadians to think about what kind of military and what kind of country they really want.
In 1947 a group of Yoruba-speaking fishermen who had been persecuted because of their religious beliefs founded their own community in order to worship in peace. Although located in an impoverished part of Nigeria, within a few years the village enjoyed remarkable economic success. This was partly because the fishermen held all goods in common, pooled the profits in the community treasury, and attempted to reduce the importance of the family and marriage. After about a generation the utopia began to fall apart. The early religious zeal faded, private enterprise replaced communalism, and the family became strong once more. In an attempt to explain the initial success and eventual decline of the utopia, the author compares it with neighbouring villages that embraced similar religious beliefs but did not enjoy the same economic success. He sets the problem firmly in a broad comparative framework and draws the implications for theories of development, especially Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis.
Edgar Award Winner: True stories of miscarriages of justice, legal battles, and landmark reversals, by the creator of Perry Mason. In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin. After reviewing the case, Gardner agreed to help—it seemed the fate of the “Red-Headed Killer” hinged on the testimony of a colorblind witness. Gardner’s intervention sparked the Court of Last Resort. The Innocence Project of its day, this ambitious and ultimately successful undertaking was devoted to investigating, reviewing, and reversing wrongful convictions owing to poor legal representation, prosecutorial abuses, biased police activity, bench corruption, unreliable witnesses, and careless forensic-evidence testimony. The crimes: rape, murder, kidnapping, and manslaughter. The prisoners: underprivileged and vulnerable men wrongly convicted and condemned to life sentences or death row with only one hope—the devotion of Erle Stanley Gardner and the Court of Last Resort. Featuring Gardner’s most damning cases of injustice from across the country, The Court of Last Resort won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Originating as a monthly column in Argosy magazine, it was produced as a dramatized court TV show for NBC.
Very few buildings finish on time or at the right price, and clients often criticise the fact that the finished building is not what they expected. Poor communication between the parties at one or more stages of the construction process seems to be the cause, and improved briefing practice has long been recognised as one important area where such communication could be improved. This book examines the briefing process to understand its strengths and weaknesses and the problems involved, draws on the experience of other disciplines and industries, and identifies best practice and purpose innovations in the briefing process. It is strongly industry oriented while drawing on sound research.
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