Routledge Own or Other Culture

Own or Other Culture challenges those anthropologists who suggest that fieldwork in the 'West' is easy or merely a reiteration of what is already 'known' to either Westerners or non Westerners. Revealing some pioneering articles in social anthropology written over a period of twenty years, Judith Okely discusses selected themes which include: * questions of reflexivity and autobiography * anthropology in Europe * the cultural location of the anthropologist * feminism in anthropology. Illustrated with photographs, Own or Other Culture covers subjects ranging from the author's own boarding school revealing a British exotica and colonial comparisons, to how Gypsies, who treat non-Gypsies as the 'other', act to create or manipulate cultural difference. Feminist anthropology is developed in a reassessment of de Beauvoir and Kaberry while gender and bodily experience is explored in the face of popular demands by women readers for cross-cultural examples. Review A major theme of this work is therefore construction of the conventional ideology within anthropology is traced experience living among the Trobriand Islanders. Perhaps the most consistent theme is the theoretical richness to be found in ethnographic investigation. It is argued throughout that attention to the minutiae of culture context is an excellent way to gain theoretical insight.