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Re: Cross about Fabian comment
Caroline Osella (Caroline.Osella@DURHAM.AC.UK)
Fri, 1 Apr 1994 11:26:27 +0100
On Thu, 31 Mar 1994, James G. Carrier wrote:
> > Also, to be honest, my objection is that I could not
> > really find in his book a sense of what sound anthropology
> > would be like _at the concrete level_. I increasingly dislike
> > discussions that, like Fabian's, are both dense and abstract
> > and so provide the reader no concrete instances that can be
> > used to exemplify, and so actually give usable meaning to, the
> > abstractions. But then, I have trouble with a lot of the more
> > theoretical anthropology that I read.
When we read 'dense abstract theoretical' pieces, don't we have to do a
bit of *mental work* ourselves, i.e. make our own concrete examples, by
using the theory to think through ethnography with which we are
familiar? I've been applying Taussing to concrete examples, and have
found it useful, as Fabian has long been...
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