It is the anthropologist’s fate to always be between things: countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us, changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we live in the world. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, The Power of the Between is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller’s life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped over decades of reading and research. Stoller imparts his accumulated wisdom not through grandiose pronouncements but by drawing on his gift for storytelling. Tales of his apprenticeship to a sorcerer in Niger, his studies with Claude Lévi-Strauss in Paris, and his friendships with West African street vendors in New York City accompany philosophical reflections on love, memory, power, courage, health, and illness.Graced with Stoller’s trademark humor and narrative elegance, The Power of the Between is both the story of a distinguished career and a profound meditation on coming to terms with the impermanence of all things.
Author(s): Paul Stoller
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 216
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Prologue: The Power of the Between......Page 14
1 Seeking Truth......Page 25
2 Alternative Truths......Page 32
3 Embodiments......Page 38
4 Knowledge......Page 49
5 Sorcery......Page 55
6 New York City......Page 65
7 Complexities......Page 74
8 Family......Page 81
9 Sensuousness......Page 87
10 Embodied Memories......Page 92
11 Wood......Page 102
12 New World Circuits......Page 108
13 Art......Page 111
14 Intersections......Page 117
15 Weaving the World......Page 129
16 Immunology and the Village of the Healthy......Page 133
17 Entering the Village of the Sick......Page 140
18 Sorcery in the World......Page 148
19 Remission......Page 158
20 Reconfiguration......Page 164
21 Ethnography......Page 167
22 Memoir......Page 173
23 Imagination......Page 178
24 Stories......Page 184
Epilogue: Flying on the Wings of the Wind......Page 187
Notes......Page 192
References......Page 204
Index......Page 212
