Time and the Work of Anthropology - Critical Essays 1971-1981 (Paperback)

This book is a collection of previously published but often inaccessible papers that spans 20 years of the author's engagement with modern thought and the problems of ethnography. It illustrated Fabian's intellectiual development and from this perspective contributes to many issues of current debate in anthropology. The collection demonstrates that the historical and theoretical arguments formulated in Fabian's previous work "Time and the Other", were the result of practical problems he faced as a working ethnographer. The book argues that the dialogic approach, the autobiographic perspective and the central role assigned to text-interpretation emerge from the daily chores of field research rather than literary theory. It sustains this thesis with a consideration of the revival in recent years of "historical anthropology", and reflects on another current concern, the politics of representing the other. The book is intended for anthropologists.