Abstract

ROTH SENEFF, Andrew. Historical Particularism in a Relational Methodological Approach. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.38, n.152, pp.353-360. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v38i152.346.

In El fin del exotismo. Ensayos de Antropología Crítica, Alban Bensa sets forth, from three different vantage points, the concrete nature of anthropological practice while, at the same time, criticizing several “narrative leaps” that have distracted so much of anthropology. First, he advocates for an engaged anthropology that is consubstantial with time and the circumstances of anthropological subjects, arguing that only in this way can we put an end to exoticism. Second, he expounds on the relational methodology of Gregory Bateson with its focus on the contextual categories of behavior and their communicative and cultural-historical organization. Through the examination of the processes of communicative contextual configuration, the structural focus on codified representations and their transformations is critically questioned. Finally, the author postulates a post-Boasian historical particularism concerned with complexity and heterogeneity, but sensitive to broader human processes and their diverse developments in practice.

Keywords : exoticism; historical particularism; historical anthropology.

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