This book focuses on comparison in anthropology, turning an ethnographic lens onto the diversity of comparative practice. It seeks to understand how, why and with what consequences diversely situated groups of people – many of whom operate on radically different premises to professional anthropologists – make comparisons, above all, between themselves and real or imagined others. What motivates people to compare, what techniques or logics do they employ, and what are the most likely outcomes – both intended and unintended? How do comparative practices reflect, reinforce or refuse uneven relations of power? And finally, what can a rejuvenated comparative anthropology learn from the anthropology of comparison? The volume develops a dialogue between scholars with long- term ethnographic engagement in a variety of contexts around the world and is particularly valuable reading for those interested in anthropological methodology and theory.
Author(s): Mathijs Pelkmans, Harry Walker
Series: LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 213
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 On the Act of Comparison: An Introduction
Swiping Through …
Unstable Grounds
Prickly Connections
Comparing Acts of Comparison?
Notes
References
Part I The Art of Comparing
2 In Defence of Bad Comparisons? Comparisons and Their Motivations in Indonesia’s Riau Islands
Initial Motivations
The Psychodynamics of Comparison
Comparison in the Riau Islands
Comparison’s Motivations: Person-Centred Perspectives
Implications for Anthropological Practice
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
3 Recognizing Uniqueness: On (Not) Comparing the World Nomad Games
Celebrating Cultural Uniqueness On the World Stage
Projecting Uniqueness and Seeking Recognition
Seeking Uniqueness and Recognizing It
Recognition, By Comparison
Notes
References
4 Totemic Comparisons; Or, How Things Compose in Southeast Solomon Islands
Deep Ontologies as Modes of Comparison: a Compositionist Approach
Arosi: Adumbration and Its Methods of Comparison
Conclusion: No Comparison Without Competition
References
5 All Alike Anyway: An Amazonian Ethics of Incommensurability
Life in a World of Others
The Relativity of Ethnicity
Wither the Third Term?
In Praise of Likeness
Desingularisation and the State
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part II Comparison at Work
6 Principles Or Pragmatics?: Debt Advice as a Comparative Encounter
Cases and Comparisons
Case 1: ‘Disrupting Attachments’ in the UK
Case 2: Psychic Self-Blame Vs Relational Pragmatism
Case 3: ‘Plunder’ and ‘Claw Back’ of Funds in South Africa
Case 4: Temporal Tactics in South Africa
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
7 Long, Hard Labours of Comparison Among Japanese Salarymen
Introduction
Staging the Field
Intimacies of Exotic Work
Intertwined Bases of Comparison in Japan: Ethnic Homogeneity, Historical Uniqueness and the Sociological Underpinnings of Hierarchy
The Cultural Naturalization of Homogeneity and Bounded Japanese Ethnicity
Cultural Naturalization of Japan’s Longue Durée Historical Trajectory and Ownership of Japan’s Late 20th Century ‘Economic Miracle’
Foundations of Comparison: Hierarchy in the Social Construction of the Japanese Self
The Formal Organization of Japanese Corporations Abroad: French and Thai Disjunctures
Distinctions In/of French ‘Cultural’ Capital
Intimate Movements of Thai ‘Social’ Capital
Hardball: Golf as Japanese Corporate Idiom
In the Space of the Thai, at the Margins of the Japanese
Conclusion
Notes
References
8 Uncomfortable Comparisons: Anthropology, Development, and Mixed Feelings
Introduction
The Exemplar
The Exemplar for Development
The Exemplar for Anthropology
Gender Training
Conclusion
Notes
References
9 Implicit Comparisons, Or Why It Is Inevitable to Study China in Comparative Perspective
What Is China?
China in Comparative Perspective
Implicit Comparisons in the Study of China
Society and Individualism
Empire and the Compulsion to Find Coherence
Implicit Comparisons, Shared Fictions, and Complicity
Conclusion
Notes
References
10 Afterword: The Social Lives of Comparison
Are There Cultures of Comparison?
What Does It Feel Like to Compare?
The Denial of Comparability
Shifting the Frame
Comparative Anthropology and the Anthropology of Comparison
References
Index
