Categories of analysis in the social sciences include the binary pair 'nature' and 'culture', as defined by western societies. Anthropologists have often imputed these categories to the world-views of non-western people and the construct has acquired the status of a universal. It has been further argued that culture (that which is regulated by human thought and technology) is universally valued as being superior to nature (the unregulated); and that female is universally associated with nature (and is therefore inferior and to be dominated) and male with culture. The essays in this volume question these propositions. They examine the assumptions behind them analytically and historically, and present ethnographic evidence to show that the dichotomy between nature and culture, and its association with a contrast between the sexes, is a particularity of western thought. The book is a commentary on the way anthropologists working within the western tradition have projected their own ideas on to the thought systems of other peoples. Its form is largely anthropological, but it will have a wide appeal within the social sciences and the humanities, especially among those interested in structuralist thought and women's studies.
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"Professor MacCormack had done a superb job of exhausting the sources and establishing his case for his thesis that aspects of Confucianism he emphasizes has a profound influence on the codes....His book is a great step forward for the field....this is an illuminating book." The American Journal of Legal History
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Questions the proposition that people in western societies universally make a distinction between that which is natural and that which is cultural, and that there is a universal equation between female and nature and male and culture.
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This is an exploration of the belief that human beings differ from animals and its corollary that culture is distinct and contrasted with nature. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
initiation grove, initiation season, forest min, flute myth, masked spirits, natal place, male spirit, wild spirits, clan territory, male initiate, spirit cults Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New Guinea, New York, Gbana Bom, Stanford University Press, New Britain, Annual Meeting, Gbana Born, Queen of the Night, Sierra Leone, Structural Anthropology, The Magic Flute, Academic Press, Association of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, Allen Lane, French Enlightenment, George Crabbe, Jules Michelet, Presses Universitaires de France, Van Baal New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
This is an exploration of the belief that human beings differ from animals and its corollary that culture is distinct and contrasted with nature. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
initiation grove, initiation season, forest min, flute myth, masked spirits, natal place, male spirit, wild spirits, clan territory, male initiate, spirit cults Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New Guinea, New York, Gbana Bom, Stanford University Press, New Britain, Annual Meeting, Gbana Born, Queen of the Night, Sierra Leone, Structural Anthropology, The Magic Flute, Academic Press, Association of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, Allen Lane, French Enlightenment, George Crabbe, Jules Michelet, Presses Universitaires de France, Van Baal New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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This book cites 51
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- Woman, Culture, and Society by Michelle Rosaldo on 4 pages
- Second Sex (Everyman Classic Library) by Simone De Beauvoir on page 22, page 68, and page 94
- Perceiving Women by Shirley Ardener in Front Matter, page 22, and page 93
- Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir on page 22, page 68, and page 94
- The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir on page 22, page 68, and page 94
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- Embodied Progress: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception by Sarah Franklin on 5 pages
- Sex and Violence by Penelope Harvey on 4 pages
- Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) by Nigel Rapport on 4 pages
- Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism (New Accents) by Gayle Green on page 32, page 33, and page 35
- Own or Other Culture by Judith Okely in Front Matter, page 204, and page 205
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