Against Exoticism - by Bruce Kapferer & Dimitrios Theodossopoulos (Paperback)

About the Book

• Offers a re-evaluation of the role of the exotic in anthropology.
• Introduces the notion of counter-exoticisation, a conceptual tool to aid analysis.
• Extends the academic critique of Orientalism to de-territorialise the exotic and de-centre Euro-centrism.
• Presents a new intervention on the nature of comparativism in anthropology eschewing the oppositional dialectic of relativism versus universalism.
• Makes visible the interrelationship of exoticism and counter-exoticisation.

Book Synopsis

• Offers a re-evaluation of the role of the exotic in anthropology.
• Introduces the notion of counter-exoticisation, a conceptual tool to aid analysis.
• Extends the academic critique of Orientalism to de-territorialise the exotic and de-centre Euro-centrism.
• Presents a new intervention on the nature of comparativism in anthropology eschewing the oppositional dialectic of relativism versus universalism.
• Makes visible the interrelationship of exoticism and counter-exoticisation.

Review Quotes

"This book demonstrates the urgent need for a scholarly discourse on methodological concerns with intellectual representations of minorities and subaltern groups. It echoes postcolonial critiques of representation, challenges the 'transparency by denegations' of intellectuals and undoes the 'epistemic violence'... By unraveling these realities, the book contributes a meaningful analysis of deep-seated social values and heterogeneous norms for advancing the discipline of anthropology." - Anthro Book Forum

About the Author

Bruce Kapferer is Director of an ERC Advanced Grant on Egalitarianism at the University of Bergen. He was the Foundation Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Adelaide and later James Cook University. He was the Professor and Chair of Anthropology at University College London, where he is now also Honorary Professor. He is the author of several monographs, including Legends of People, Myths of State (2011) and 2001 and Counting: Kubrick, Nietzsche, and Anthropology (2014), and editor of many volumes, among which are Beyond Rationalism (2003) and In the Event (2015, with Lotte Meinert). He has conducted ethnographic research in Zambia, Sri Lanka, Australia, India, and South Africa.