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Anthropological Demography

Toward a New Synthesis

Although in its early years anthropology often used demographic research and showed interest in demographic issues, anthropology and demography have more recently grown to distrust each other’s guiding assumptions and methods. Demographers have stressed universal causal models and standardized survey methods, while sociocultural anthropologists have increasingly focused on the uniqueness of different peoples and their cultures.

Showing that the two disciplines have much to offer each other, this book bridges the demography/anthropology divide. The editors begin the volume with an in-depth historical account of the relations between the fields. Eminent contributors from both disciplines then examine the major issues and controversies in anthropological demography, including the demographic implications of differing family and kinship systems; the influence of new developments in cultural, gender, and identity theory on population study; the limits of quantitative approaches in demographic study; and demographers’ views of the limits of anthropological methods.

304 pages | 2 line drawings, 15 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1997

Population and Development Series

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

Sociology: Social Organization--Stratification, Mobility

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1: Toward an Anthropological Demography
David I. Kertzer, Tom Fricke.
2: Kinship Systems and Demographic Regimes
Monica Das Gupta
3: Family Systems and Demographic Processes
G. William Skinner
4: Reproduction in Anthropology and Demography
Nicholas Townsend
5: Similarities and Differences: Anthropological and Demographic Perspectives on Gender
Nancy E. Riley
6: Population and Identity
Philip Kreager
7: Anthropology and Demography: Marriage, Liaison, or Encounter?
E. A. Hammel, Diana S. Friou.
8: Demography without Numbers
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
9: "Truth Lies in the Eye of the Beholder": The Nature of Evidence in Demography and Anthropology
Allan G. Hill
10: Culture Theory and Demographic Process: Toward a Thicker Demography
Tom Fricke
Contributors
Index

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