In this work Tim Ingold provides a persuasive new approach to the theory behind our perception of the world around us. The core of the argument is that where we refer to cultural variation we should be instead be talking about variation in skill. Neither genetically innate or culturally acquired, skills are incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment.They are as much biological as cultural.
Author(s): Tim Ingold
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 480
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of figures......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 11
General introduction......Page 16
Introduction to PART I......Page 24
Culture, nature, environment: steps to an ecology of life......Page 28
The optimal forager and economic man......Page 42
Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment......Page 55
From trust to domination: an alternative history of human animal relations......Page 76
Making things, growing plants, raising animals and bringing up children......Page 92
A circumpolar night's dream......Page 104
Totemism, animism and the depiction of animals......Page 126
Ancestry, generation, substance, memory, land......Page 147
Introduction to PART II......Page 168
Culture, perception and cognition......Page 172
Building, dwelling, living: how animals and people make themselves at home in the world......Page 187
The temporality of the landscape......Page 204
Globes and spheres: the topology of environmentalism......Page 224
To journey along a way of life: maps, wayfinding and navigation......Page 234
Stop, look and listen! Vision, hearing and human movement......Page 258
Introduction to PART III......Page 304
Tools, minds and machines: an excursion in the philosophy of technology......Page 309
Society, nature and the concept of technology......Page 327
Work, time and industry......Page 338
On weaving a basket......Page 354
Of string bags and birds' nests: skill and the construction of artefacts......Page 364
The dynamics of technical change......Page 377
'People like us': the concept of the anatomically modern human......Page 388
Speech, writing and the modern origins of 'language origins'......Page 407
The poetics of tool-use: from technology, language and intelligence to craft, song and imagination......Page 421
Notes......Page 435
References......Page 451
Index......Page 469
