Understanding Cultures

Understanding Cultures confronts the major theoretical issues involved in cross-cultural interpretation. The book introduces students to rationality among the ancestors of anthropology before proceeding to a wide-ranging evaluation of the Anglo-American rationality debates.

Acknowledgements.

1. Introduction.

2. Anthropological Ancestors and Interpretation Theory: Boas, Malinowski, and Evans-Pritchard.

3. Peter Winch and Ordinary Language Philosophy.

4. The Neo-Popperians and the Logic of One Science: I.C. Jarvie and Robin Horton.

5. Ordinary Language Philosophy in Question: Steven Lukes and Alasdair MacIntyre.

6. Beyond Explanation and Understanding: The Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.

7. Hermeneutics and Critical Anthropology: The Synthesis of Practical and Critical Reason.

8. Modernism and Postmodernism in Anthropology.

9. Bounded Cultures – Bounded Selves: The Challenge of Cultural Diasporas.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

"Understanding Cultures is an exceptional work of anthropological theory, a book which is simultaneously good to think with, good to teach with, good to write with, good to read with. What makes it so good is not merely Robert Ulin's capacity to engage critically and cogently with a wide array of complex ideas, his willingness to root anthropological discourses deeply in their appropriate philosophical and pistemological ground, or his obvious talent for lucid exposition. It is also the intellectual enthusiasm, and the imagination, which he brings to a difficult task. This new edition, which has been thoughtfully revised and updated, is even better than its excellent predecessor." John Comaroff, University of Chicago

"In this updated form, one of the most accessable and lucid discussions of rationality takes on new relevance for today's readers. Understanding Cultures will continue to probe and illuminate fundamental issues in social theory for years to come." F. Allan Hanson, University of Kansas

"Ulin's justly acclaimed discussion of the rationality debate remains essential reading for any anthropologist interested in epistemology and the politics of representation. For students who wish to learn how the insights of philosophers, social theorists and sociocultural anthropologists can enrich each other in building a critical theory that refuses to take postmodern fragmentation at face value, this judicious and perceptive work remains the ideal source." John Gledhill, The University of Manchester

Robert C. Ulin is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Anthropology at Rochester Institute of Technology, and an international expert in theory and the anthropology of work. He is the author of numerous books and articles on social theory and the anthropology of Europe, including Vintages and Traditions (1996). Understanding Cultures confronts the major theoretical issues involved in cross-cultural interpretation. The book introduces students to rationality among the ancestors of anthropology before proceeding to a wide-ranging evaluation of the Anglo-American rationality debates. At issue is the opposition between scientific models of understanding human action and those models that emphasize human action as symbolic and meaningful, thus privileging an interpretive framework. This long-awaited second edition includes a new chapter on globalism and cultural diaspora that challenges conventional notions of bounded culture and bounded self and has important implications for refiguring the rationality debates, fieldwork, and cross-cultural interpretations more generally.