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.

Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction: Observing Anthropologists: Professional Knowledge, Practice and Lives Cris Shore and Susanna Trnka Chapter 1. Suffering, Selfhood and Anthropological Encounters Michael Jackson Chapter 2. Anthropology, Ontology and the Maori World Anne Salmond Chapter 3. Building Bridges: Maori and Pakeha Relations Joan Metge Chapter 4. 'Culture’, ‘Race’ and ‘Me’: living the anthropology of Indigenous Australians Gillian Cowlishaw Chapter 5. Finding One’s Way in Arnhem Land Nicolas Peterson Chapter 6. Art as Action: The Yolngu Howard Morphy Chapter 7. Rethinking Nature and Nativeness David Trigger Chapter 8. More than Local, Less than Global: Anthropology in the Contemporary World Christopher  Pinney Chapter 9. Beyond Selling Out: Art, Tourism and Indigenous Self-Representation Nelson Graburn Chapter 10. Sovereign Individuals and the Ontology of Selfhood Nigel Rapport Chapter 11. Hidden Histories and Political Transformations Susan Wright Chapter 12. Gender Ideology, Property Relations and Melanesia: The Field of “M” Marilyn Strathern Conclusion: Looking Ahead: Anthropology, Past Connections, Future Directions Cris Shore and Susanna Trnka

“The book offers both unsettling and highly inspirational 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 “This book is a good and lively read, constructed so as to draw the readers into the discussion, to make us reach our own conclusions and also to do what most of us like best: to listen carefully and to draw conclusions from the stories told to us and for us.”  ·  Sites “A stimulating collection of interviews.…Its value is in the biographical glimpses, intellectual perspectives and methodological insights each offer into their work. The dialogical approach works well….[T]he volume illustrates the dynamic relationship between anthropological theorizing and political practice. Rather than celebrate anthropology, the book’s role is perhaps to champion iconoclasm and the unorthodox approaches that seem to characterize many anthropological careers.”  ·  David Mills, Oxford University