In this paper, I try to identify the reasons why the dialogue between sociocultural anthropology and animal rights theories and movements continues to be difficult and scarce. At first sight this weakness of communication is surprising, if one looks at the amount of anthropological studies on human/animal relationships, in most cases pointing to how animals are considered in many cultures as non-human subjects or persons. For understanding the roots of this state of affairs, I compare the ways anthropologists and animal (...) rights theorists and activists have engaged with the issue of the differences and commonalities between human beings and nonhuman animals. For this aim, I contrast the search, among philosophers and activists, for a universal rational ethical foundation of animal rights, to which natural sciences’ findings can give support, with sociocultural anthropologists’ focus on the embeddedness of human/animal relationships in symbolic systems and in political relationships. In spite of the paradigmatic shifts intervened in a century and half of sociocultural anthropology, I show, through a critical review of the recent works of Ingold, Descola, Viveiros de Castro and Kohn, that even today this difference in approach is far to be overcome. (shrink)

This article locates Bourdieu’s sociology within the lasting controversy concerning the nature of causal explanation and interpretative understanding in the social sciences, with a special focus on the classical problem surrounding the alleged compatibility between these procedures. First, it is argued that Bourdieu’s praxeological and relational perspective on the social universe leads him not only to join the ‘compatibility field’ of the debate, but to sustain, more radically, the identity between explanation and understanding. Second, the article defends the view that (...) this methodological proposal is tied to a distinction often ignored among the commentators of Bourdieu’s oeuvre, namely that between objectivism, a mode of knowledge of the social which he intends to integrate and overcome in his structural praxeology, and determinism, adopted by the author as a fundamental scientific principle and, at the same time, a potentially emancipatory ethico-political tool bequeathed by his reflexive sociology. While basically sympathetic to Bourdieu’s perspective, the article concludes in a more critical vein, by defending the need to bridge the gap between the ‘pessimism of the intellect’ that marks his portrayal of the reflexive capabilities of the lay agent, on the one hand, and the ‘optimism of the will’ infused in the critical program of reflexive sociology, on the other. (shrink)

With reference to two different projects examining North American Christianities, this symposium contribution explores opportunities for critique when conducting fieldwork. Drawing from observations made by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, I suggest that critique is most productive when it uses the perspective and position of one’s interlocutors as its point of departure.

Crime scene investigation reports, like other kids of official bureaucratic documents, serve an important purpose in the functioning of modern states. This article examines crime scene investigation reports from a city in southeastern Mexico pseudonymously called La Ciudad. The article combines textual discourse analysis of police suicide investigation reports with ethnographic analysis of police investigative practices to ask, how do law enforcement documents showcase the interactions between law enforcement agents and citizens? In what way can ethnographic analysis highlight and supplement (...) the strengths and limitations of law enforcement documents as prisms of social reality? The complex and contested relationship between representatives of a Mexican law enforcement agency and the citizenry it claims to protect is visible in the documents it produces. The ethnographic material further deepens the reader's understanding of the ways in which law enforcement agents and common citizens form relationships based on negotiation and distrust. (shrink)

Bijker calls for scholars in science and technology studies to become public intellectuals by actively working toward “democratizing... technological culture.” Many STS scholars have developed practices that support democratic and public activity; yet, these typically require individual commitment with inadequate institutional support. The public work of STS scholars can be better supported through a program that includes using specialist research in nonreproductive educational contexts, redefining and revaluing academic service, developing more accessible ways of writing, and publishing and valuing STS-based texts (...) that circulate among nonacademic audiences. (shrink)

The impact of postmodernism on research methodology: implications for nursingThis article considers what have been referred to as die two major crises in research methodology: (i) the crisis of legitimation (to what extent are the notions of reliability and validity still meaningful in the light of a posture that is said to approach an ’anything goes’ standpoint); and (ii) the crisis of representation (to what extent is it possible to represent the world view of ‘the odier’ without it being merely (...) a construction of the researcher). These are discussed in order to identify aspects of a continuing debate that is of relevance to nurses for they are integral to graduate research and the ongoing application of research in hospital or community contexts. Educating nurses in research requires that they learn a repertoire of research skills such as literature critiques, developing research questions, interviewing, analysing techniques and computer‐assisted analysis. However, postmodern debates can also be beneficial by facilitating their understanding of contemporary research issues so that they can critically integrate such reflexive thinking into dieir own research practices and go on to explore new ways to undertake research. (shrink)