Vassos Argyrou
Biographic Data
| ID | 448800 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vassos Argyrou |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vassos |
| FAMILY NAME | Argyrou |
| SIGNATURE | ARGYROU V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hull |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 150 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality
Although modernity’s understanding of nature and culture has now been superseded by that of environmentalism, the power to define the meaning of both, and hence the meaning of the world itself, remains in the same (Western) hands. This bold argument is at the center of this provocative book that challenges the widespread assumption that environmentalism reflects a radical departure from modernity. Our perception of nature may have changed, the au…
In the Margins of Europe”: Cypriot Nationalism, Liminality, and the Moral Economy of the Financial Crisis
This article argues that Greek Cypriot nationalism has been in large part motivated by the misconceived idea of Cyprus becoming a modern, European society. Although Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the perception of it by the European north as a culturally marginal Mediterranean society had not changed. This was amply demonstrated in 2013 when Cyprus applied to the EU for urgent financial assistance. It was forced to capitalize its banks…
Ontology, 'hauntology' and the 'turn' that keeps anthropology turning
Twentieth-century anthropology has been operating with the assumption of one nature and many cultures, one reality experienced and lived in many different ways. Its primary job, therefore, has been to render the otherness of the other understandable, to demonstrate that although different it is also the same; in short, to show that although other, others are people like us. The latest theoretical paradigm, known as the 'ontological turn', appears…
Magic, Anthropology of
Cosmopolitanism, sociology and the otherness of the other
This article is concerned with the 'cosmopolitan turn' in sociology and examines the ways in which the discipline attempts to come to terms with the otherness of the other as a corrective to its own Eurocentrism. It examines in particular the pluralisation of the notion of modernity and argues that although this strategy allows sociology to maintain its disciplinary identity, it falls short of the aim of transforming the discipline into a cosmopo…
"Funerals aren't nice but it couldn't have been nicer". The makings of a good funeral
There is growing comment in both academic and popular writing about the shape and content of funerals today, with general agreement that we are seeing marked changes with a growing trend towards secularisation and personalisation. Despite this, there is as yet relatively little systematic research on the topic. This article reports on a study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK into spirituality in contemporary funerals. This qu…
Provincialising Europe. Reflections on questions of method and strategy
To ‘provincialise’ Europe is to undertake the enormously difficult task – because of the intractable paradoxes involved and the blind alleys encountered at every turn – of demonstrating what from a certain perspective should be obvious enough: that Europe is not the centre of the world, but only a small group of nations occupying a small region of the world that has attracted attention to itself during the last few centuries – an instant in the w…
The Philosopher's Gift
■ This article considers Derrida's critique of Mauss's The Gift and the philosopher's argument that the gift is impossible. In the spirit of the gift, the article engages Derrida in a potlatch-like manner and subjects his critique to the same sort of critical interrogation to which he subjects the gift. The key question raised is why Derrida should want to give this gift of knowledge, namely, that there is no gift. The article argues that despite…
How Greeks Think: About Turks, for Example
This paper is concerned with the hegemonic relations between Europe and the Greek-speaking world as these are reflected in Greek perceptions of the Self and Others. It argues that how Greeks think about Turks—the stereotypical religious, ethnic and cultural Other—cannot be understood outside the context of Greek cultural dependence on Europe. As European attitudes to Others change from blatant ethnocentrism to patronizing multiculturalism, so do,…
Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality
Reflexive modernization' and other mythical realities
This article explores the theory of `reflexive modernization' which is primarily associated with the names of Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. It examines the pressures under which the re-definition of modernity as `pure' reflexivity emerged and suggests that among these, poststructuralism has been the most fundamental. It also examines how the theory, by refashioning modernity, strives to maintain western identity over and above its other, the t…
Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique
Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique
1. Introduction: Of Scholars, Gamblers and Thieves 2. Has There Ever Been a Crisis in Ethnological Representation? 3. The Salvation Intent 4. What the Natives Don't Know 5. The Ethnological Will to Meaning References Index
Sameness and the Ethnological Will to Meaning
This article examines the claim that there is a crisis in ethnological representation. It argues that no such crisis exists because the truth of the most fundamental ethnological representation-Sameness-is questioned by no one. It suggests that this claim must be understood as an attempt to uphold Sameness in the face of representations of difference that contradict it. The article further argues that it is impossible to demonstrate Sameness and …
Resistance, Misrecognition, or Identity? Images of Rural and Urban in Three Recent Greek Ethnographies
The Last Word: Women, Death and Divination in Inner Mani. NADIA SEREMETAKIS. Chicago IL University of Chicago Press. 1991, xi + 275 pp. Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography. NENI PANOURGIA. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1995, xxiv + 242 pp. Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle. VASSOS ARGYROU. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996, x + 210 pp. Since its beginn…
Keep Cyprus Clean: Littering, Pollution, and Otherness
Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle
The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between …
Is "Closer and Closer" Ever Close Enough? Dereification, Diacritical Power, and the Specter of Evolutionism
Recent work in anthropology dereifies Western and non-Western societies and demonstrates that they are much more similar than previous paradigms supposed. Moreover, anthropologists assume that by deconstructing such essentializations, they also demonstrate cultural equality between the West and the Other. I suggest that the division of the world does not deny similarity but identity, in the double sense of the word. In more general terms I argue …
Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Constructivism. James D. Faubion
Under a spell: The strategic use of magic in Greek Cypriot society
In Cyprus, actors who use the notion of magic to explain particular events and acts are typically labeled "superstitious" and "ignorant." The arguments employed to support this accusation are strongly reminiscent of colonial anthropology and, like it, they function to legitimate relations of domination. Evidence from Cyprus suggests that far from signifying superstition, recourse to the notion of magic is a social strategy. Similarly, a community…
Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle
The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between …
Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique
1. Introduction: Of Scholars, Gamblers and Thieves 2. Has There Ever Been a Crisis in Ethnological Representation? 3. The Salvation Intent 4. What the Natives Don't Know 5. The Ethnological Will to Meaning References Index
"Funerals aren't nice but it couldn't have been nicer". The makings of a good funeral
There is growing comment in both academic and popular writing about the shape and content of funerals today, with general agreement that we are seeing marked changes with a growing trend towards secularisation and personalisation. Despite this, there is as yet relatively little systematic research on the topic. This article reports on a study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK into spirituality in contemporary funerals. This qu…
Keep Cyprus Clean: Littering, Pollution, and Otherness
Sameness and the Ethnological Will to Meaning
This article examines the claim that there is a crisis in ethnological representation. It argues that no such crisis exists because the truth of the most fundamental ethnological representation-Sameness-is questioned by no one. It suggests that this claim must be understood as an attempt to uphold Sameness in the face of representations of difference that contradict it. The article further argues that it is impossible to demonstrate Sameness and …
Ontology, 'hauntology' and the 'turn' that keeps anthropology turning
Twentieth-century anthropology has been operating with the assumption of one nature and many cultures, one reality experienced and lived in many different ways. Its primary job, therefore, has been to render the otherness of the other understandable, to demonstrate that although different it is also the same; in short, to show that although other, others are people like us. The latest theoretical paradigm, known as the 'ontological turn', appears…
Under a spell: The strategic use of magic in Greek Cypriot society
In Cyprus, actors who use the notion of magic to explain particular events and acts are typically labeled "superstitious" and "ignorant." The arguments employed to support this accusation are strongly reminiscent of colonial anthropology and, like it, they function to legitimate relations of domination. Evidence from Cyprus suggests that far from signifying superstition, recourse to the notion of magic is a social strategy. Similarly, a community…
Reflexive modernization' and other mythical realities
This article explores the theory of `reflexive modernization' which is primarily associated with the names of Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. It examines the pressures under which the re-definition of modernity as `pure' reflexivity emerged and suggests that among these, poststructuralism has been the most fundamental. It also examines how the theory, by refashioning modernity, strives to maintain western identity over and above its other, the t…
Is "Closer and Closer" Ever Close Enough? Dereification, Diacritical Power, and the Specter of Evolutionism
Recent work in anthropology dereifies Western and non-Western societies and demonstrates that they are much more similar than previous paradigms supposed. Moreover, anthropologists assume that by deconstructing such essentializations, they also demonstrate cultural equality between the West and the Other. I suggest that the division of the world does not deny similarity but identity, in the double sense of the word. In more general terms I argue …
The Philosopher's Gift
■ This article considers Derrida's critique of Mauss's The Gift and the philosopher's argument that the gift is impossible. In the spirit of the gift, the article engages Derrida in a potlatch-like manner and subjects his critique to the same sort of critical interrogation to which he subjects the gift. The key question raised is why Derrida should want to give this gift of knowledge, namely, that there is no gift. The article argues that despite…
Cosmopolitanism, sociology and the otherness of the other
This article is concerned with the 'cosmopolitan turn' in sociology and examines the ways in which the discipline attempts to come to terms with the otherness of the other as a corrective to its own Eurocentrism. It examines in particular the pluralisation of the notion of modernity and argues that although this strategy allows sociology to maintain its disciplinary identity, it falls short of the aim of transforming the discipline into a cosmopo…
How Greeks Think: About Turks, for Example
This paper is concerned with the hegemonic relations between Europe and the Greek-speaking world as these are reflected in Greek perceptions of the Self and Others. It argues that how Greeks think about Turks—the stereotypical religious, ethnic and cultural Other—cannot be understood outside the context of Greek cultural dependence on Europe. As European attitudes to Others change from blatant ethnocentrism to patronizing multiculturalism, so do,…
Under a spell: The strategic use of magic in Greek Cypriot society
In Cyprus, actors who use the notion of magic to explain particular events and acts are typically labeled "superstitious" and "ignorant." The arguments employed to support this accusation are strongly reminiscent of colonial anthropology and, like it, they function to legitimate relations of domination. Evidence from Cyprus suggests that far from signifying superstition, recourse to the notion of magic is a social strategy. Similarly, a community…
Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Constructivism. James D. Faubion
Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle
The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between …
Is "Closer and Closer" Ever Close Enough? Dereification, Diacritical Power, and the Specter of Evolutionism
Recent work in anthropology dereifies Western and non-Western societies and demonstrates that they are much more similar than previous paradigms supposed. Moreover, anthropologists assume that by deconstructing such essentializations, they also demonstrate cultural equality between the West and the Other. I suggest that the division of the world does not deny similarity but identity, in the double sense of the word. In more general terms I argue …
Keep Cyprus Clean: Littering, Pollution, and Otherness
Resistance, Misrecognition, or Identity? Images of Rural and Urban in Three Recent Greek Ethnographies
The Last Word: Women, Death and Divination in Inner Mani. NADIA SEREMETAKIS. Chicago IL University of Chicago Press. 1991, xi + 275 pp. Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography. NENI PANOURGIA. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1995, xxiv + 242 pp. Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle. VASSOS ARGYROU. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996, x + 210 pp. Since its beginn…
Sameness and the Ethnological Will to Meaning
This article examines the claim that there is a crisis in ethnological representation. It argues that no such crisis exists because the truth of the most fundamental ethnological representation-Sameness-is questioned by no one. It suggests that this claim must be understood as an attempt to uphold Sameness in the face of representations of difference that contradict it. The article further argues that it is impossible to demonstrate Sameness and …
Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique
Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique
1. Introduction: Of Scholars, Gamblers and Thieves 2. Has There Ever Been a Crisis in Ethnological Representation? 3. The Salvation Intent 4. What the Natives Don't Know 5. The Ethnological Will to Meaning References Index
Reflexive modernization' and other mythical realities
This article explores the theory of `reflexive modernization' which is primarily associated with the names of Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. It examines the pressures under which the re-definition of modernity as `pure' reflexivity emerged and suggests that among these, poststructuralism has been the most fundamental. It also examines how the theory, by refashioning modernity, strives to maintain western identity over and above its other, the t…
Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality
How Greeks Think: About Turks, for Example
This paper is concerned with the hegemonic relations between Europe and the Greek-speaking world as these are reflected in Greek perceptions of the Self and Others. It argues that how Greeks think about Turks—the stereotypical religious, ethnic and cultural Other—cannot be understood outside the context of Greek cultural dependence on Europe. As European attitudes to Others change from blatant ethnocentrism to patronizing multiculturalism, so do,…
Provincialising Europe. Reflections on questions of method and strategy
To ‘provincialise’ Europe is to undertake the enormously difficult task – because of the intractable paradoxes involved and the blind alleys encountered at every turn – of demonstrating what from a certain perspective should be obvious enough: that Europe is not the centre of the world, but only a small group of nations occupying a small region of the world that has attracted attention to itself during the last few centuries – an instant in the w…
The Philosopher's Gift
■ This article considers Derrida's critique of Mauss's The Gift and the philosopher's argument that the gift is impossible. In the spirit of the gift, the article engages Derrida in a potlatch-like manner and subjects his critique to the same sort of critical interrogation to which he subjects the gift. The key question raised is why Derrida should want to give this gift of knowledge, namely, that there is no gift. The article argues that despite…
"Funerals aren't nice but it couldn't have been nicer". The makings of a good funeral
There is growing comment in both academic and popular writing about the shape and content of funerals today, with general agreement that we are seeing marked changes with a growing trend towards secularisation and personalisation. Despite this, there is as yet relatively little systematic research on the topic. This article reports on a study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK into spirituality in contemporary funerals. This qu…
Magic, Anthropology of
Cosmopolitanism, sociology and the otherness of the other
This article is concerned with the 'cosmopolitan turn' in sociology and examines the ways in which the discipline attempts to come to terms with the otherness of the other as a corrective to its own Eurocentrism. It examines in particular the pluralisation of the notion of modernity and argues that although this strategy allows sociology to maintain its disciplinary identity, it falls short of the aim of transforming the discipline into a cosmopo…
Ontology, 'hauntology' and the 'turn' that keeps anthropology turning
Twentieth-century anthropology has been operating with the assumption of one nature and many cultures, one reality experienced and lived in many different ways. Its primary job, therefore, has been to render the otherness of the other understandable, to demonstrate that although different it is also the same; in short, to show that although other, others are people like us. The latest theoretical paradigm, known as the 'ontological turn', appears…
In the Margins of Europe”: Cypriot Nationalism, Liminality, and the Moral Economy of the Financial Crisis
This article argues that Greek Cypriot nationalism has been in large part motivated by the misconceived idea of Cyprus becoming a modern, European society. Although Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the perception of it by the European north as a culturally marginal Mediterranean society had not changed. This was amply demonstrated in 2013 when Cyprus applied to the EU for urgent financial assistance. It was forced to capitalize its banks…
The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality
Although modernity’s understanding of nature and culture has now been superseded by that of environmentalism, the power to define the meaning of both, and hence the meaning of the world itself, remains in the same (Western) hands. This bold argument is at the center of this provocative book that challenges the widespread assumption that environmentalism reflects a radical departure from modernity. Our perception of nature may have changed, the au…
Sociology (15 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Anthropology (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · History (5 works)