About this Book

Decolonisation, modernisation, globalisation, the crisis of representation and the `cultural turn in neighbouring disciplines have unsettled anthropology to such an extent that the fields foundations, the subjects of its study as well as its methods and concepts appear to be eroded. After more than twenty-five years of critical debate and reflection on these developments, it is now time to take stock and either abandon anthropology as a fundamentally untenable or superfluous project or to set it on more solid foundations. The Frobenius Institute, Germanys oldest anthropological research institution, invited some of the worlds leading anthropologists, including Vincent Crapanzano, Maurice Godelier, Ulf Hannerz and Adam Kuper to do just that. By reflecting on how to meet the manifold institutional, theoretical, methodological and epistemological challenges to the field as well as the continued, if not heightened importance of anthropology in a world where diversity and cultural difference are becoming ever more important economically, politically and legally, the volume sets upon the task of reconstructing anthropologys foundations and firming up its stance vis--vis these challenges.