Living Beings examines the vital characteristics of social interactions between living beings, including humans, other animals and trees.
Many discussions of such relationships highlight the exceptional qualities of the human members of the category, insisting for instance on their religious beliefs or creativity. In contrast, the international case studies in this volume dissect views based on hierarchical oppositions between human and other living beings. Although human practices may sometimes appear to exist in a realm beyond nature, they are nevertheless subject to the pull of natural forces. These forces may be brought into prominence through a consideration of the interactions between human beings and other inhabitants of the natural world.
The interplay in this book between social anthropologists, philosophers and artists cuts across species divisions to examine the experiential dimensions of interspecies engagements. In ethnographically and/or historically contextualized chapters, contributors examine the juxtaposition of human and other living beings in the light of themes such as wildlife safaris, violence, difference, mimicry, simulation, spiritual renewal, dress and language.
Edited by:
Penelope Dransart
Imprint: Berg Publishers
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 15mm
Weight: 366g
ISBN: 9780857858429
ISBN 10: 0857858424
Series: ASA Monographs
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 30 June 2020
Audience:
College/higher education
,
General/trade
,
Primary
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Living Beings and Vital PowersPenny Dransart, University of Wales, Trinity St David, UKInterspecies Interaction Being-together with Animals: Death, Violence and Non-cruelty in Hindu Imagination.Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University, USASymbolic Meanings Between People and Trees/ForestsThe Nature of Nature in Ramon LlullSarah Jane Boss, Roehampton University, UKThe Tree of Guernica: Political Poetics of Rootedness and BelongingSafet Hadzimuhamedovic, Goldsmiths, University of London, UKBringing the Forest to the City: Spaces Imagined in Israeli ‘Sacred Song Circles’Ronit Grossman-Horesh, The Open University of Israel/Tel-Aviv University, IsraelInterspecies Interaction in Physical SettingsSensuous Photographies: Living Things Explored through Phenomenological Practice Carole Baker, University of Plymouth, UKThe Field: An Art Experiment in Biopower in a Woodland Near Stansted Airport, EssexAlana Jelinek, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UKHuman Responses to ‘Wildness’Hunting the Wild ‘Other’ to Become a Man: wildlife Tourism and the Modern Identity Crisis in Israeli Safaris to East AfricaRachel Ben David, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, IsraelBecoming Animal in the Chinese Martial ArtsD. S. Farrer, University of Guam, GuamMoral Issues in Engagements Between Animals and the Environment'Anthropomorphism', 'Anthropocentrism' and the Study of Language in PrimatesDavid Cockburn, University of Wales, Trinity St David, UKDressed in Furs: Clothing and Yaghan Multispecies Engagements in Tierra del FuegoPenelope Dransart, University of Wales, Trinity St David, UKBibliographyIndex
Penelope Dransart is Reader in Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK.
Reviews for Living Beings: Perspectives on Interspecies Engagements
Living Beings offers a lot to think about, even if some of its essays touch the question of animals and plants only rather obliquely. It is hardly the final or definitive word on the subject of human relationality with nonhuman species, but it indicates a serious and growing emphasis on the subject, and it shows that anthropology as well as other disciplines still have contributions to make. -- Jack David Eller Anthropology Review Database