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Anthropology and Humanitarianism?

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International Humanitarian Action

Abstract

How is anthropology relevant to humanitarianism? This short introduction is intended to give students some tools to provide their own answers to this question.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more on this aspect of anthropology see: Eriksen (2010).

  2. 2.

    For more on this aspect of anthropology see: Bornstein and Redfield (2011).

  3. 3.

    For an elaboration on this point, see for example Hannerz (1996).

  4. 4.

    For more on the history and background of anthropology, see Kuper (1996) and Moberg (2012).

  5. 5.

    See for example Tambiah (1990).

  6. 6.

    For an elaboration on rationality, see Wilk and Cliggett (1996).

  7. 7.

    Mauss (2001 [1925]).

  8. 8.

    For another intriguing example that has become extremely influential within anthropology, see Douglas (2002). It will surely change the way you understand the term ‘dirt’.

  9. 9.

    See Hannerz (1996), p. 234 for an elaboration on this point, and on the concept of culture.

  10. 10.

    For more elaborations on fieldwork and participant observation, see Amit (1999) and Robben and Sluka (2011).

  11. 11.

    A few examples of interesting ethnographies include: Abu-Lughod (1999), Farella (1990) and Shostak (2009).

  12. 12.

    Malinowski (1922).

  13. 13.

    For a more thorough discussion, see Michrina and Richards (1996).

References

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Further Reading

  • Chernoff J (2003) Hustling is not stealing. Stories of an African bar girl. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

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  • Finnström S (2008) Living with bad surroundings: war, history, and everyday moments in northern Uganda. Duke University Press, Durham

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  • Harris M (1979) Cultural materialism: the struggle for a science of culture. Random House, New York

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  • Höjdestrand T (2009) Needed by nobody: homelessness and humanness in post-socialist Russia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

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  • Maček I (2009) Sarajevo under siege. Anthropology in wartime. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia

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  • Ong A (1999) Flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham

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  • Robben C (ed) (2010) Iraq at a distance: what anthropologists can teach us about the war. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Ulrika Persson-Fischier

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  1. Ulrika Persson-Fischier
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Correspondence to Ulrika Persson-Fischier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Hans-Joachim Heintze

  2. Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Pierre Thielbörger

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Persson-Fischier, U. (2018). Anthropology and Humanitarianism?. In: Heintze, HJ., Thielbörger, P. (eds) International Humanitarian Action. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14454-2_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14454-2_14

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14454-2

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