The guiding inspiration of this book is the attraction and distance that mark the relation between anthropology and philosophy. This theme is explored through encounters between individual anthropologists and particular regions of philosophy. Several of the most basic concepts of the discipline-including notions of ethics, politics, temporality, self and other, and the nature of human life-are products of a dialogue, both implicit and explicit, between anthropology and philosophy. These philosophical undercurrents in anthropology also speak to the question of what it is to experience our being in a world marked by radical difference and otherness. In The Ground Between, twelve leading anthropologists offer intimate reflections on the influence of particular philosophers on their way of seeing the world, and on what ethnography has taught them about philosophy. Ethnographies of the mundane and the everyday raise fundamental issues that the contributors grapple with in both their lives and their thinking. With directness and honesty, they relate particular philosophers to matters such as how to respond to the suffering of the other, how concepts arise in the give and take of everyday life, and how to be attuned to the world through the senses. Their essays challenge the idea that philosophy is solely the province of professional philosophers, and suggest that certain modalities of being in the world might be construed as ways of doing philosophy.

Contributors. Joao Biehl, Steven C. Caton, Vincent Crapanzano, Veena Das, Didier Fassin, Michael M. J. Fischer, Ghassan Hage, Clara Han, Michael Jackson, Arthur Kleinman, Michael Puett, Bhrigupati Singh

About the Author

Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at The Johns Hopkins University and author of Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary.

Michael D. Jackson is Distinguished Professor of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School.

Arthur Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University.

Bhrigupati Singh is Assistant Professor of Anthropology Brown University and the author of Gods and Grains: Lives of Desire in Rural India.

Reviews
"Resisting the impulse to recognize one discipline in service of the other, The Ground Between collects ethnographic writing that sharpens dialogue between anthropology and philosophy." -- Paul Schissel * Anthropology and Humanism *
"The Ground Between is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature on the relationship between anthropology and philosophy. It convincingly encourages us to seek new ways for two disciplines concerned with an important common subject -- the nature and limits of the human -- to talk with, rather than past, each other." -- Michele M. Moody-Adams * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
"The authors do a consistently good job of blending original research with primary source material to present a holistic picture of the interplay between the disciplines. Vincent Crapanzano does a masterful job elucidating epistemological philosophies through a series of ethnographic vignettes. On the whole, I found the anthology challenging in places but enjoyable and thought provoking. The diversity of writing styles and approaches to anthropology keep the reader's attention while also making it possible to excerpt chapters for assigned reading." -- Misty Luminais * International Social Science Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822357186
Author Veena Das
Format Paperback
Page Count 360
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 499g