The Categorical Impulse : Essays on the Anthropology of Classifying Behavior

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellen, Roy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Classification.

Ethnology.

Ethnopsychology--Classification.

Ethnopsychology.

Human behavior--Classification.

Human behavior.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (247 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Berghahn Books, 2008.

Summary:

Classification, as an object of recent anthropological scrutiny came to prominence during the 1960s, exemplified in the British (constructionist) tradition by the writings of Mary Douglas, and in the American ethno-semantics (cognitive) tradition by the likes of Harold Conklin and Brent Berlin. At the time, these approaches seemed by turns to contradict each other, or even to exist in parallel universes. However, over the last 30 years we have witnessed both a renewed interest in classification studies as well as a cross-fertilization of these once antagonistic approaches. These essay

Contents:

The Categorical Impulse; Contents; Preface; List of Figures; List of Tables; CHAPTER 1. Introduction; CHAPTER 2. Anthropological Studies of Classification (1996); CHAPTER 3. Classifying in its Social Context (1979); CHAPTER 4. Variable Constructs in Nuaulu Zoological Classification (1975); CHAPTER 5. Anatomical Classification and the Semiotics of the Body (1977); CHAPTER 6. Grass, Grerb or Weed? The Ethnography of a Plant Life-form (1991); CHAPTER 7. Palms and the Prototypicality of Trees (1998); CHAPTER 8. The Inedible and the Uneatable (1998)

CHAPTER 9. Fetishism: A Cognitive Approach (1988)CHAPTER 10. The Cognitive Geometry of Nature: A Contextual Approach (1996); Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9780857455703

0857455702

OCLC:

994873265