1. Anthropology of knowledge.
- Author
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Cohen, Emma
- Subjects
- *
ANTHROPOLOGY , *SOCIAL sciences , *THEORY of knowledge , *ANTHROPOLOGISTS , *CIVILIZATION , *RESEARCH - Abstract
Explanatory accounts of the emergence, spread, storage, persistence, and transformation of knowledge face numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. This paper argues that although anthropologists are uniquely positioned to address some of these challenges, joint engagement with relevant research in neighbouring disciplines holds considerable promise for advancement in the area. Researchers across the human and social sciences are increasingly recognizing the importance of conjointly operative and mutually contingent bodily, cognitive, neural, and social mechanisms informing the generation and communication of knowledge. Selected cognitive scientific work, in particular, is reviewed here and used to illustrate how anthropology may potentially richly contribute not only to descriptive and interpretive endeavours, but to the development and substantiation of explanatory accounts also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
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