Human Nature and Social Life: Perspectives on Extended Sociality

by Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme (Editor), Kenneth Sillander (Editor)

Overview

What distinguishes humans from nonhuman 'others'? And how do these distinctions shape human sociality and the ways that humans relate to their others? Human Nature and Social Life brings together a collection of articles by prominent anthropologists to address these questions. The articles show how the fundamentally social nature of humans results in an extension of sociality to virtual, semiotic-material and nonhuman spheres, with humans therefore becoming part of 'extended socialities'. However, as the book's contributors demonstrate, human distinctness significantly bears upon these extended socialities, and the manner in which humans partake in them. Taking an ethnographic approach to its subject, this book demonstrates the continued value of studying the specificities of the human condition, and sets itself as a counterweight to current refutations of human exceptionalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107179202
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2017
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology, Universitetet i Oslo. He has conducted research among the Ifugao of the Philippines and has published extensively on such themes as religion, rituals, causality, and human-animal relations, including the monograph Pigs and Persons in the Philippines (2014). He has twice won awards for best article of the year in Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, Norway's national anthropological journal. He is currently turning his research interests towards the political aspects of lobster farming and fishing along the Norwegian west coast.

Kenneth Sillander is senior lecturer in sociology at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki. He has conducted long-term ethnographic research among the Bentian people of Indonesian Borneo and published articles on subjects such as kinship, religion, rituals, naming, and ethnicity. He has previously edited Anarchic Solidarity (with Thomas Gibson, 2011), Ancestors in Borneo Societies (with Pascal Couderc, 2012), and 'Belonging in Borneo: Refiguring Dayak Ethnicity in Indonesia' (special issue in the Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, with Jennifer Alexander, 2016).

Table of Contents

Introduction: extended sociality and the social life of humans Kenneth Sillander and Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme; 1. The evanescence of experience and how to capture it Christina Toren; 2. The mirror of the material: things, objects and what we see in them Janet Hoskins; 3. Human at risk: becoming human and the dynamics of extended sociality Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme; 4. Connectedness through separation: human – nonhuman relations in Tibet and Mongolia Heidi Fjeld and Benedikte V. Lindskog; 5. Egalitarian and non-egalitarian sociality Alan Barnard; 6. Peaceful sociality: the causes of nonviolence among the Orang Asli of Malaysia Kirk Endicott; 7. The point of no return: the tristesse of anthropological fieldwork Carol Delaney; 8. Sociality, socialities, and sociality as a causal force Michael Carrithers; 9. Monism, dualism and participant observation Maurice Bloch; 10. Kinship particularism and the project of anthropological comparison Susan McKinnon; Afterword: extensions Marilyn Strathern.

Editorial Reviews

Advance praise: ‘This is a timely volume that casts new light on current debates on the question of the human, while seeking to reposition the concept of 'society' on new ground: the scope is broad, the perspectives multiple, and the arguments, offered by a plethora of prominent anthropologists, most challenging. It will certainly make a significant contribution to the future of the discipline.’ Kostas Retsikas, Kostas Retsikas, author of Becoming – An Anthropological Approach to Understandings of the Person in Java

From the Publisher