Own or Other Culture

Own or Other Culturechallenges those anthropologists who suggest that fieldwork in the "West" is easy or merely a reiteration of what is already "known" to either Westerners or non Westerners. Including a number of pioneering articles in social anthropology written over a period of twenty years, this book discusses selected themes such as questions of reflexivity and autobiography, anthropology in Europe, the cultural location of the anthropologist and feminism in anthropology. The introduction also places the work in its original context and in the light of recent developments and controversies in the discipline. Illustrated with photographs,Own or Other Cultureis written in an accessible and vivid style. It covers subjects ranging from the author's own boarding school -- revealing a British exotica and colonial comparisons, to how Gypsies, treating non-Gypsies as the "other", act to create or manipulate cultural difference.