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dc.contributor.authorReed, Adam
dc.contributor.authorBialecki, Jon
dc.date.accessioned2020-02-23T00:34:34Z
dc.date.available2020-02-23T00:34:34Z
dc.date.issued2018-05
dc.identifier251245646
dc.identifiera82bf2f7-e4d2-41e0-a370-6acdd5e68a2e
dc.identifier85042363617
dc.identifier000434177200002
dc.identifier.citationReed , A & Bialecki , J 2018 , ' Introduction to special section 1 : Anthropology and character ' , Social Anthropology , vol. 26 , no. 2 , pp. 159-167 . https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12479en
dc.identifier.issn0964-0282
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0001-8917-6341/work/42276809
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/19516
dc.description.abstractThis introductory essay seeks to reintroduce character to anthropological inquiry. Although it has long been out of favour due to its historical associations with accounts that attempt to describe national or ethnic character, we argue that a return of the under-theorised concept may be in order. The essay invites socio-cultural anthropologists to describe the diverse contexts in which character is recognised or enacted, out-there-in-the-world, and to become far more reflective about the ways in which characterization is deployed in our ethnographic writing. At the same time, it asks how the concept might be fruitfully operationalized at a meta-language level to reorient current fields of anthropological study, without necessarily resorting to any collective or individual essentialisms. To illustrate the utility of re-interrogating the concept, the question is addressed to two specific fields in which one might expect a concept such as character to already feature strongly: the anthropology of ethics and the anthropology of Christianity. What does an ethnographic attention to the ways in which character gets attributed reveal? How differently might these and other fields look if anthropologists embraced the concept of character or rejected it more knowingly? Finally, the essay asks what kinds of recombination of insights an anthropology and character approach might enable.
dc.format.extent509382
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofSocial Anthropologyen
dc.subjectEthicsen
dc.subjectChristianityen
dc.subjectSubjectivityen
dc.subjectLawen
dc.subjectGN Anthropologyen
dc.subjectBR Christianityen
dc.subjectT-NDASen
dc.subject.lccGNen
dc.subject.lccBRen
dc.titleIntroduction to special section 1 : Anthropology and characteren
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Social Anthropologyen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Centre for Pacific Studiesen
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/1469-8676.12479
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.date.embargoedUntil2020-02-23


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