Publisher's Synopsis
Stanley Diamond (1922-1991), anthropologist and poet, was at the forefront of every major critical trend in anthropology during the past 40 years. In all aspects of his work, he opposed social exploitation, tending to the unheard voices of oppressed peoples. His research and analyses of culture in contemporary and past societies examine the dynamics of state formation and the consequences of civilisation for humanity as a whole. In this two-volume set of essays, scholars consider the dimensions and implications of Diamond's major contribution to critical theory, the concept of dialectical anthropology. Insisting that anthropology must maintain a perspective that is simultaneously interpretive, self-reflective and interdisciplinary, Diamond came to speak for the ways in which anthropology can resist the dehumanising impulses of modern civilisation. In the nuclear age, anything less than social participation, he believed, risks the future of humankind. The essays in this second volume explore the ways in which political conditions constrain the analysis and creation of culture. The contributors first address the political dimensions of doing ethnography, of writing about culture. The poets and ethnomusicologists in the second section consider words and music as forms of criticism of modern civilisation. The authors in the third part discuss the differences between statist and emancipatory forms of culture.
