Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction by John Monaghan

Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction Reviews

• 
  Petra has forgotten what being in love feels like

  Even though I've read quite a few anthropology books, this was still interesting. One thing I learned was that the main tool of anthropologists was long holidays in exotic locations periods spent in hard conditions with interesting people who might get to be real friends people of a very different and often difficult culture. The main tool of sociologists is .. the survey and statistics. Well I know which one I'd rather be.
  
  I lived up the Amazon with Caboclo Indians for three months at one point. Do you thinks someone might fund me to go and live with them for a couple of years? They have such lovely lives and I could do with a good long holiday. I'm not bad at writing and I'm ok at statistics too, so I'm sure I could come up with a report at the end of it. Now how to get that grant!
• 
  فؤاد

  
  
  چند وقت پيش چند تا عكس بى نظير ديدم از مجله ى نشنال جئوگرافى. عكاس يه ايرانى بود به نام حميد سردار افخمى. عكس ها مربوط به بيابانگردهاى مغول بود. اون دوره زياد شيفته ى مغول ها و تبتی ها و باقى ساكنان آسياى ميانه بودم و مى گشتم دنبال عكس هاشون.
  توى اين عكس ها، قبيله هاى مغولی نشون داده شده بودن، با گوزن هاى بزرگ سفيدی كه مثل اسب اهلى كرده بودن و به عنوان مَركَب ازشون استفاده مى كردن. توى يه عكس يه دختر بچه ى مغول سوار بر يك گوزن بود. توى يه عكس ديگه يه گوزن نشسته بود، و يه پسر بچه بهش تكيه داده و خوابش برده بود. توى فيلم هابيت صحنه اى هست كه اِلف ها گوزن سوار شدن؛ اما اين عكس ها واقعى بودن، جايى توى همين دنيا.
  
  هر چقدر اين عكس ها نفسگير بودن، ايرانى بودن عكاس باعث دو برابر شدن هيجان مى شد: حميد سردار افخمى. با خودم فكر مى كردم يعنى كى بوده؟ چى شده كه سر از مغولستان درآورده؟ علاقه مند شدم و جستجوى مختصرى كردم و ديدم اين آقاى محترم، ماه ها رفته بين اين قبايل بيابانگرد زندگى كرده، اون هم بدون اين كه از دوربين عكاسى استفاده كنه، چون موجب بى اعتمادى بومى ها مى شده، تا عاقبت به عنوان يه دوست بين مغول ها پذيرفته شده و بالاخره تونسته عكاسى رو شروع كنه و اين صحنه هاى باشكوه رو ثبت كنه.
  
  از اون موقع، اين زندگى برام شده بود يه جور رؤيا. از اون دست رؤياهايى كه مى دونى هيچ وقت براى تو محقق نميشن، اما دوست دارى توى جيبت نگه شون دارى و هر از چندى در بيارى و بین دوتا دست بگیری و تماشاشون كنى، تا درخشش شون سينه ت رو پر كنه.
  
  اين كتاب چيزى از جنس همون درخشش رو بين صفحاتش داشت.
• 
  Ahmad Sharabiani

  Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions #15), John Monaghan, Peter Just
  تاریخ نخستین خوانش: دوازدهم ماه مارس سال 2015 م
  عنوان: انسان شناسی اجتماعی و فرهنگی ؛ نویسنده: جان موناگان (ماناگن)؛ پیتر جاست؛ مترجم: احمدرضا تقاء؛ تهران، ماهی، 1393، در 211 ص، مصور، نقشه، نمایه، شابک: 9789642090365؛ موضوع: قوم شناسی قرن 21 م
  ا. شربیانی
• 
  Donakrap Dokrappom

  ถ้าถามว่ามานุษยวิทยาคืออะไร สำหรับผมแล้วบอกได้คำเดียวครับว่า ใบ้แดก!!
  
  ต้องบอกก่อนว่า ผมค่อนข้างมีความหลังที่ไม่ค่อยดีนักกับหนังสือชุด ความรู้ฉบับพกพา ไม่อยากใช้คำว่าแขยงเลย พกพาจริงครับ พาไปไกล ๆ เลย... ชิบหายมึนหัวไปหมด อ่านไม่จบซักเล่ม!!!
  
  จนมาเห็นคุณ Phakin N. (ขออนุญาตเอ่ยนาม) เพื่อนใน goodreads นี่แหละที่บอกว่าเล่มนี้ใคร ๆ ก็อ่านได้...
  
  อ่าว ๆ ๆ ท้าทายผมเหรอ
  
  จริงครับ หนังสือเล่มเล็ก ๆ เล่มนี้เหมาะมากกับการเปิดโลกทางด้านมานุษยวิทยาสำหรับคนทั่วไป เพราะมันได้พาเราไปรู้จักว่ามานุษยวิทยาคืออะไร มีคำกล่าวว่าถ้าอยากรู้ว่ามานุษยวิทยาคืออะไรให้ดูว่านักมานุษยวิทยาทำอะไรบ้าง หนังสือเล่มนี้พาเราไปถึงจุดนั้นครับ
  
  ผู้เขียนได้เล่าภาพกว้าง ๆ ของศาสตร์ทางด้านนี้ผ่านประสบการณ์ของตัวเองในฐานะนักมานุษยวิทยา โดยมุ่งเน้นให้เห็นถึงลักษณะการทำงาน รูปแบบวิธีการศึกษาและเป้าหมายของการศึกษามนุษย์ในเชิงสังคมและวัฒนธรรมผ่าน case study ที่ผู้เขียนได้ลงพื้นที่ไปทำการศึกษา ซึ่งมันทำให้เราเห็นภาพของการทำงานมากขึ้น
  
  และตอนนี้หากมีใครมาถามผมว่ามานุษยวิทยาคืออะไร ผมก็จะตอบว่า เป็นศาสตร์ที่ทำให้เราเข้าใจคนอื่นมากขึ้นยังไงละครับ
• 
  Robert Day

  People are strange when you're a stranger
  Faces look ugly when you're alone
  Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
  Streets are uneven when you're down
  
  When you're strange
  Faces come out of the rain
  When you're strange
  No one remembers your name
  When you're strange
  When you're strange
  When you're strange
  (The Doors)
  
  We're all strangers somewhere. No matter how much we consider ourselves to be 'children of the world', there's always going to be someone that thinks of us as strangers, complete with eerie mood music.
  
  To me, anthropology is about these strangers - which means that it is about each and every one of us.
  
  You might have the impression that anthropology is all about studying hitherto undiscovered people living in jungles or remote valleys - cut off from the world - and it is! But there's more.
  
  You remember that movie - Crocodile Dundee, where this guy from the Australian Outback visits New York and has all kind of adventures and strange experiences with the 'natives' of New York? Well - the Outback guy is pretty much doing what an anthropologist would.
  
  In fact, this is happening all the time. As well as 'advanced' civilisations monitoring, cataloguing and preserving information about 'primitive' civilisations, the opposite is happening too.
  
  Judging by the rate at which we are using this planet up, we could do with being studied and preserved for posterity.
  
  Perhaps a bit of pickling wouldn't go amiss too.
  
  I couldn't really get into this book. It seemed to be written by old guys - people that learned their trade from people that studied their trade in the 1950s. It could have done with a fresher eye really.
  
  A better approach would be to explain anthropology in terms of Science Fiction movies. All those Alien and Predator movies would be ideal to start with, not to mention Avatar and ... and pretty much any Sci-Fi movie really.
  
  In fact - when I think about it - aren't all movies about strangeness?
  
  Let's take a random movie - 'Pretty Woman' - one culture meets another culture and they study and ultimately save each other - that's the essence of anthropology really I guess.
  
  Yeah - skip this book and go to the movies instead.
  
  As I sit here and tipperty-tap my fingers on the keyboard, I'm thinking about the new Terminator movie - Arnie's going to be back!
  
  Yay for strangeness.
  
• 
  Phakin

  เป็น VSI ที่สนุก ตัวอย่างเยอะตามสไตล์นักมานุษยวิทยา และที่สำคัญคืออ่านง่ายมากๆ เป็นหนึ่งในไม่กี่เล่มที่ทำอยู่แล้วรู้สึกว่าเป็นหนังสือสำหรับ general audience 555555 เชิญ���วนครับ
• 
  Canon

  "Indeed, anthropologists may sometimes be carried away by the romance of their own enterprise and value the 'unspoiled' traditions of a society far more than the people themselves do," (26)
  
  This wasn’t one of the better Very Short Introductions I’ve read. The subject is extremely fascinating, a field I wanted some very basic orientation to (a desire that often leads me to the VSI series) and the authors begin on a promising note, saying to look at what anthropologists do in order to understand what anthropology is. They also cover a good number of topics, including culture, society, class, sex, and religion — but in a way that, to me, often felt frustratingly disjointed, more of a laundry list of topics and thinkers than a helpful synthesis.
  
  That being said, chapter 2 on "culture" and chapter 5 on various modes of manufactured solidarity à la Durkheim (caste, class, tribe nation) were interesting despite the uninspiring presentation. One theme the authors hit on several times is unity-in-diversity across cultures, as when they remark: "Human cultures, then, seem to be infinitely variable, but in fact that variability takes place within the boundaries produced by physical and mental capacities. Human languages, for example, are tremendously diverse. differing In sound, grammar, and semantics. But all are dependent upon what appears to be a uniquely human capacity and predisposition for learning languages," (43). Additionally, they highlight three ongoing sites of controversy about the idea of culture:
  
  1. The extent to which a 'culture' should be regarded as an integrated whole — For anthropologists in the integrated whole camp, they mention three leading theories: (1) total pattern (Gestalt); (2) code or program; and formal system. For anthropologists in the anti-integrated whole camp, they use the metaphor of a bricolage.
  2. The extent to which 'culture' can be seen as an autonomous, "superorganic" entity — Culture as an accreted and structuring coral reef (Alfred Kroeber) vs. culture as a shared site of “communicative symbols that [organize] diversity” (Anthony Wallace).
  3. How to best go about drawing boundaries around 'cultures' — they talk about nationalism and the idea of an essence of a people (monolithic, all-encompassing) vs. culture as a process, open-ended and melding.
  
  I found myself firmly on the anti-integrated whole/non-superorganic/non-essentialist side of these disagreements. On the whole idea of a national spirit or essence, I particularly liked Arjun Appadurai's point that "this premise [flies] in the face of ‘unequal knowledge and the differential prestige of lifestyles, and [discourages] attention to the world views and agency of those who are marginalized and dominated.’" This point, never articulated as well as this, has always been one of my spontaneous dissenting reactions to essentializing paeans to “Western culture,” from the likes of Scruton or Bloom. The War does not appear to want a folk-consciousness, not even of the sort the Germans have engineered (Gravity's Rainbow 133).
  
  On cultural relativism, I liked this passage: "Taken to an extreme, a view of relativism that consigns the members of different cultures to utterly different worlds would make all translation impossible, including the translation performed in ethnography. As Dan Sperber has observed, ‘the relativist slogan, that people of different cultures live in different worlds, would be nonsense if understood as literally referring to physical worlds’, and an extreme ‘relativist in earnest should be either quite pessimistic about the possibility of doing ethnography at all or extraordinarily optimistic about the abilities of ethnographers,’" (64). Although, I probably ultimately concur with Clifford Geertz's "anti-anti-relativism," which deflates the entire issue's importance: "the crimes committed in the name of cultural relativism pale in comparison to those committed in the name of cultural and national chauvinism or, for that matter, almost any other ‘ism,’" (66).
  
  I also think this is a VSI that could do with a new edition, to expand and update some of the content (it was published in 2000) — particularly, I thought, their pontification on “the end of nationalism,” where the authors comically include a Reasonable Caveat that, of course, they can’t be sure how things will go, but actually it does seem possible that nationalism and various tribalisms will fade as globalism and a new melding cosmopolitanism takes over. In 2021 this seems very naïve.
• 
  HAMiD

  كتاب تنها بسنده مي‌كند به ديدگاههايي به تعبيري اساسي در رشته‌ي انسان شناسي و اتفاقن خيلي به جا و مختصر اين چنين مي‌كند. مجموعه كتابهاي مختصر مفيد نشر ماهي در مجموع پسنديد‌ه اند
• 
  Pawarut Jongsirirag

  เหมาะมากกับการเป็นหนังสือเล่มเเรกในการเข้าใจโลกของมานุษยวิทยา
  
  ในเเต่ละบท จะอธิบายถึงคอนเซปคร่าวๆถึงสิ่งที่มานุษยวิทยาได้ศึกษา เช่น ชาติพันธุ์ วัฒนธรรม ชนชั้น เพศ ศาสนา เเละอื่นๆมากมาย พวกเขามีมุมมองต่อสิ่งเหล่านี้ยังไง มีเเง่มุมใดบ้างที่น่าลงลึกศึกษา
  
  เเม้เนื้อหาจะดูหนักหน่วง เเต่การร้อยเรียงอธิบายทำได้ดีมากครับ ไม่ยากจนเกินไปเเละไม่ง่ายจนเกินไป ถ้าคุ้นเคยกับกรอบทางสังคมวิทยาเเละมานุษยวิทยามาบ้าง การอ่านจะลื่นไหลมากเลย เเต่ถ้าไม่เคยผ่านตางานสายนี้เลย ผมคิดว่าก็อ่านได้เข้าใจไม่ยากนะครับ มีบ้างจุดที่ต้องใช้สมาธิมากๆอยู่บ้าง เเต่ก็ส่วนน้อย นอกนั้นอ่านเพลินมากจริงๆ
  
  สิ่งที่นักมานุษยวิทยาพยายามบอกเราก็คือ ไม่มีสิ่งใดคือความจริงสากล ทุกสิ่งทุกอย่างมีความหลากหลายอยู่ในตัว ไม่มีความคิดความเชื่อใดที่จะดำรงอยู่ในลักษณะที่เป็นความจริงเเท้เเน่นอน
  
  ความหลากหลายคือความจริง เเต่เป็นความจริงที่คนเราไม่ยอมรับมันเท่าไหร่เลย...
  
• 
  Saied Davoodi

  این سومین کتاب از مجموعه مختصر و مفید بود که خوندم.
  حقیقتاً مختصر و مفید به علم انسان‌شناسی پرداخته. با این همه کتاب رو به انتها نرسوندم. چرا؟ چون قرار نیست همه کتاب‌ها رو تا انتها خوند. چون ممکنه بعضی کتاب‌ها برای ما نوشته نشده باشه. سرنوشت این کتاب هم همین بود. کتابی نبود که به کار من بیاد. به همین خاطر تنها به خوندن برخی قسمت‌های کتاب بسنده کردم و در نهایت ناتمام موند.
• 
  Donna

  Recommended reading for anybody with an interest in or embarking on a course in social anthropology. A rather nice introduction into the world of social and cultural anthropology. What was particularly great about this little book was the outlining of the historical pathway of anthropology as a discipline and its identification of the dilemmas that have cropped up therein. Ethical considerations that will always arise are covered; an absolute minefield without a doubt. But the importance of being and of observing is still of high regard - despite the difficulty of being able to truly relate to others and to other cultures, whatever the culture may be, putting aside one’s own biases and judgement. Some interesting subjects appear in this book and some brilliant references for those of you who wish to read on.
• 
  Mint

  ในฐานะคนที่ไม่มีพื้นฐานด้านมานุษวิทยา และสังคมวิทยา อ่านจบละอยากต่อยอดความรู้ด้านนี้ และหาเล่มอื่นๆมาอ่านต่อเลย
• 
  Dafna

  Some of my professors use this book to teach Intro to Anthropology class for non-anthro majors. As I am a TA for such a class, I decided to read it as well. I must say that the book is very nicely organized - it focuses around main topics in anthropology (e.g. fieldwork, society and culture, kinship, gender, caste and class, religion, exchange) and presents a lot of funny fieldwork stories that are mashed up with theory. I must say it is a pretty neat way of organizing the material. I even used some of the fieldwork stories in my classes to start discussions, and must say that it worked quite well. If you are not well-versed in anthropological theory, this book comes in really handy. But if you are - it is still useful to skim through it in order to understand how you can teach theory with very concrete examples from fieldwork.
• 
  Takumi

  Having prepared for my specialization of anthropology, I found that I'd never read an introductory book of it written in English. So I chose this one for the first step.
  This short introduction shows how anthropologists think rather than what anthropology is. It refers to almost all major topics with abundant examples some of which are from authors' own fields. If you want the overview of the history of anthropology, this might be inadequate. But still, a well-written nice introduction for beginners.
• 
  Damir

  A short, clear, intelligent introduction to the discipline of anthropology.
  Usually inroductions are compiled as textbooks serving the reader with definitions and typologies of the basic scientific language.
  This short book however, approaches some of the most interesting study subjects of anthroplogy by offering an example from the career of the writers, and then deconstructing it through several different scientific theories and viewpoints.
  Easy to read and easy to understand, a great starting point for anyone seriously interested in cultural anthropology and its many facets.
• 
  Joe Iacovino

  I read this in preparation for my anthropology class and it served me well. It is interesting, informative, and even funny. This is a well-written book for those who need to get their arms around the basics on anthropology.
• 
  Shauna

  A great intro to the breadth of anthropology outlining its development as a discipline, its fascinations, its dilemmas...written from a very humanistic perspective with good examples from the author's own work.
• 
  Budi Kurniawan

  Great introductory book on Social & Cultural Anthropology. It's very concise, and pretty easy to understand.
• 
  Deidre

  This is the first of these VSIs that I decided to read that is far removed from my formal discipline. It has also been my least favorite so far, but I don't believe one observation to be the explanation for the other.
  I read some of the other reviews. Many deem this too pedantic, too academic. I found it to be not nearly as intellectually stimulating as the other VSIs that I have read. There are some good thoughts, but nothing earth shattering. I have never taken a course in anthropology or sociology for that matter. Thus I expected to learn a fair amount, but alas, was unfulfilled.
  I expected a history of the discipline with highlights of the contribution of key players. There is some of that but less than anticipated. When the authors were focusing on explaining the research practices of anthropologists, I thought perhaps I would get an explanations with applications from within their research. A trifle, but certainly not the focus. Okay, so perhaps a history of the discipline and the applications to many other cultures? Again, some mentions, but not the focus.
  In terms of the language used to educate the lay person or undergraduate, this is a lovely text. I have marveled at the skill of the other VSI writers to summarize their disciplines so succinctly. I feel as though these chaps didn't draw out the blue prints before starting construction and changed their contractors a couple times.
• 
  Bernie Gourley

  This was one of the most interesting “Very Short Introduction” books -- of the many titles in the series that I’ve read. The authors use stories and examples to convey the basics of the subject in way that’s not mind-numbingly dry (i.e. the scholarly norm) – in fact, there’s a fair amount of humor laced throughout the book.
  
  Most of the examples come from the two tribes that these two authors study – i.e. one in Mexico and the other in Indonesia. However, those two groups provide a rich arena of interesting anecdotes, and the authors do use social groups outside their research focus when necessary.
  
  In addition to learning about the nature of ethnographic fieldwork and what anthropologists do, there’s an exploration of culture, the various ways in which people are socially organized (i.e. kinship, castes, societies, etc.,) and how different societies view religious belief, economic activity, and selfhood.
  
  If you’re starting from zero and are seeking an introduction to anthropology, I’d highly recommend this one.
• 
  Mohammad Mirzaali

  انسان‌شناسی در پی مشاهده و دست‌گذاشتن بر روی تنوع زیست آدم‌ها ست. به تعبیر دو مؤلف دید انسان‌شناختی به مخاطب خود می‌آموزد که زیر بار الفاظی چون طبیعت انسان و ذات بی‌تبدل او نرود. با وجود سختی‌های تألیف کتاب در دیسیپلینی که بر کار میدانی و قوم‌نگاری‌ها و... متکی ست، دو نویسنده کتاب را خواندنی نوشته‌اند و بصیرت‌هایی در انسان‌شناسی اجتماعی و فرهنگی، از قبیل موضوعاتی چون دین، ازدواج، جنسیت، طبقه یا قوم و... به دست می‌دهند
• 
  Poshi Getoshi

  Most introductory texts are oriented on theories and have more encyclopaedic structure. This book differs from that style by mostly telling stories from two ethnographies by the authors themselves, while using these stories to illustrate anthropological theories.
  A very short though very rich intro to anthropology and absolute pleasure to read even if you're already familiar with these theories.
• 
  Valerie Brett

  This is a more fun to read book of the series as it includes a lot of specific examples of different cultural things. But it was published in 2000 and I feel like there’s been a ton more focus lately in social sciences on the ethical aspects of the disciplines, so it probably could use an update.
• 
  Chant

  Good introduction for people interested in this field. I would even suggest for people that are interested in pursuing this as an academic career.
• 
  flaams

  this very brief introduction has just saved my gpa lol
• 
  MG

  interesting and educating without it being too complicated
• 
  Frank

  I decided it was time to learn a bit about anthropology,. But this book really didn't do anything to awaken an interest in me.
  
  Does anthropology present too small a cross section of interesting topics to be engaging, or us this just a weak book? I'll have to try again to find out.