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Theory in Anthropology in the Nineties

University of New Hampshire

Current theory in sociocultural anthropology is dismal. This article has two goals. The first is to show why one project, that of Geertzian conjecturalists, is so dismal. The second is to present an agnoiological methodology that might lift the discipline out of such doldrums. Agnoiology proceeds by revealing ignorance. It provides information of what is unknown that needs to be known to strengthen theory. The methodology is applied to certain aspects of Bourdieu's, the Comaroffs' and Sahlins's work. It reveals that these scholars belong to an old, established, Hegel/Sartre theoretical order disturbed by a gaping hole. The hole, in Sartre's terms, is an apparently 'insurmountable dualism' between the social and subjective. Repair of this hole is suggested to be a worthy project for keeping sociocultural anthropologists off the mean streets of dismal theory.

Key Words: Comaroffs • Bourdieu • Geertz • methodology • Sahlins • theory

Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 9, No. 3, 325-350 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/092137409700900304


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