Acknowledgments vii
List of Contributors ix
1. Anthropology and the Predicaments of Holism 1
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto
Part 1 Rethinking Holism in Ethnographic Practice 17
2. Beyond the Whole in Ethnographic Practice? Introduction to
Part 1 19
Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt
3. Holism and the Expectations of Critique in Post-1980s
Anthropology: Notes and Queries in Three Acts and an Epilogue
28
George E. Marcus
4. Worlding the Matsutake Diaspora: Or, Can Actor–Network Theory
Experiment With Holism? 47
Anna Tsing
5. The Whole Beyond Holism: Gambling, Divination, and
Ethnography in Cuba 67
Martin Holbraad
Part 2 Beyond Cultural Wholes? Wholes are Parts, and Parts are Wholes 87
6. Beyond Cultural Wholes? Introduction to Part 2 89
Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt
7. The Whole is a Part: Intercultural Politics of Order and
Change 102
Marshall Sahlins
8. Lingual and Cultural Wholes and Fields 127
Alan Rumsey
9. Deep Wholes: Fractal Holography in Trobriand Agency and
Culture 150
Mark Mosko
Part 3 Beyond Structural Wholes? Encompassment, Collectives, and Global Systems 175
10. Beyond Structural Wholes? Introduction to Part 3
177
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto
11. Louis Dumont and a Holist Anthropology 187
Bruce Kapferer
12. From Wholes to Collectives: Steps to an Ontology of Social
Forms 209
Philippe Descola
13. Holism and the Transformation of the Contemporary Global
Order 227
Jonathan Friedman
Part 4 Beyond Social Wholes? Holistic Practice: Cosmology, History, and the Continuity of Life 249
14. Beyond Social Wholes? Introduction to Part 4 251
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto
15. Proportional Holism: Joking the Cosmos Into the Right Shape
in North Asia 262
Rane Willerslev and Morten Axel Pedersen
16. One Past and Many Pasts: Varieties of Historical Holism in
Melanesia and the West 279
Eric Hirsch and Daniele Moretti
17. Drawing Together: Materials, Gestures, Lines 299
Tim Ingold
Index 314
Ton Otto is Professor of Anthropology and Ethnography atAarhus University, Denmark, and Professor and Research Leader atThe Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia. His mostrecent publications include the co-edited volumes: Tradition andAgency: Tracing Cultural Continuity and Invention (2005, withPoul Pedersen) and Warfare and Society: Archaeological andSocial Anthropological Perspectives (2006, with Henrik Thraneand Helle Vandkilde). Nils Bubandt is Professor of Anthropology at AarhusUniversity and co-editor-in-chief of Ethnos. He is the co-author ofImagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity(2003, with Andreas Roepstorff and Kalevi Kull), and has publishednumerous articles on topics such as forgery, witchcraft,globalization, and conflict.
The term "holism" is shorthand for a central predicament in anthropology: human situations are culturally structured, but individuals, who participate in more than one cultural "whole," can sometimes change the rules. This volume explores the theoretical space between those two aspects of the human condition. Richard Handler, University of Virginia These authors persuasively, even passionately, refocus the analysis of socio-cultural ontology. In showing how the simplistic rejection of past holisms undermined anthropology's fundamental commitments, they instead devise ingeniously critical new perspectives reflecting today's massively reconfigured and variegated understandings of context. Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University) In this capacious and brilliantly-edited collection, holism no longer suggests a totalizing project, but rather an indispensable toolkit of world-making strategies. The innovative essays gathered here map a new, multi-scaled landscape of Anthropological research. James Clifford, University of California, Santa Cruz. Author of The Predicament of Culture. ?Holism' does its magic again. This is an extraordinarily interesting commentary on the present state of anthropology that would never have come together without the editors' pursuit of an apparently unfashionable idea. Marilyn Strathern
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