Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology

This work critically evaluates a range of perspectives that implicate culture, power, and representation in anthropology and examines how cultural anthropology can remain both ethically committed and ethnographically rigorous. In the wake of tensions between modern and postmodern sensibilities, what larger directions now emerge in cultural anthropology? In this major work, Bruce Knauft takes stock of important recent initiatives in cultural and critical theory. By combining critical reviews and ethnographic engagements with fresh readings of major figures and approaches, the work develops a larger vantage point for considering the dispersing influence of practice theories, postmodernism, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, modern/post-positive feminism, and multicultural criticisms.