Between Stucture & No thing

In the history of anthropological theory, the rise and fall of the notion of structure is certainly one of the most important to note. In this book, this development is traced and held against an understanding of ethnographic practice. The book intently starts with two ethnographic examples that serve as a backdrop for testing theoretical notions.Our movement through theory is one that oscillates between structure and no-thing (and perhaps back to some notion of structure), thus giving testimony of the remarkable survival skills of anthropology as an academic discipline and its readiness for new social and cultural transformations in contemporary contexts. The texts that were selected have the purpose of being exemplary – in their use of anthropological theory – with the intent of facilitating a process of what is useful in today’s scholarship and could inform ethnographic practice. We have used the texts so that they can both explicate and challenge contemporary phenomena of social and cultural life and result in productive theory formation.This book introduces readers to historical and more contemporary explications of anthropological theory. Each chapter contains annotations to direct the student to important notions of theoretical understanding. In providing both the original text and clarifying annotations, readers can confidently grow in an understanding of anthropological analytic viewpoints. The editor also hopes that it will inspire new theoretical developments and overcoming any new disciplinary crises.Patrick J. Devlieger is anthropologists and works as associate professor of anthropology and disability studies at K.U.Leuven. He teaches on the discipline of anthropology, fieldwork methods and techniques, disability and culture social science research, and visual and experimental ethnography. His fieldwork and evaluation studies are focused on the contexts and experiences of disabled people in local and global contexts. Fieldwork sites include Congo, Zimbabwe, United States, and Belgium.