Up Close and Personal: On Peripheral Perspectives and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge

Combining rich personal accounts from twelve veteran anthropologists with reflexive analyses of the state of anthropology today, this book is a treatise on theory and method offering fresh insights into the production of anthropological knowledge, from the creation of key concepts to major paradigm shifts. Particular focus is given to how ‘peripheral perspectives’ can help re-shape the discipline and the ways that anthropologists think about contemporary culture and society. From urban Maori communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, from Arnhem Land in Australia to the villages of Yorkshire, these accounts take us to the heart of the anthropological endeavour, decentring mainstream perspectives, and revealing the intimate relationships and processes that create anthropological knowledge.

Reviews of Up Close and Personal: On Peripheral Perspectives and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge

"The book thus offers both unsettling and highlyvinspirational reading material, especially forvacademics emerging from the world's metropolises. It raises issues that are frequently overlooked and which represent unavoidable starting points for those doing anthropology today in the Antipodes and elsewhere." * Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale