Why Anthropologists Don't Reach the Public

A Rumination on Books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Bibliographic Data

ID2145020
AuthorsG Mathews (0000-0002-9437-5246, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume29
Issue2
Pages172-184
Publication date2019-04-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Forum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-4677 • E-ISSN: 1469-2902
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00664677.2018.1502074
OpenAlexW2891720012
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

I have been asked in this essay to review two recent books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen and to place them in the context of contemporary debates in anthropology. The first two sections of this review essay discuss the recent Eriksen book Overheating, and the co-edited book Identity Destabilised, outlining the books’ core arguments. Bracketing these reviews, the essay examines the larger issue of anthropologists and the general public. It asks, now that many anthropologists have realised the importance of reaching a larger audience, why are they not being more widely read? It considers various reasons for this, and suggests that since the most fundamental ideas of the discipline have been superseded by more sophisticated and diverse modes of analysis, anthropological explications of the world may no longer have much appeal to a larger audience

Cognition · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Rumination · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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