1st Edition

Self Consciousness An Alternative Anthropology of Identity

By Anthony Cohen Copyright 1994
    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    Traditionally the self and the individual have been treated as micro-versions of larger social entities by the social sciences in general, and by anthropology in particular. In Self Consciousness, Cohen examines this treatment of the self, arguing that this practice has resulted in the misunderstanding of social aggregates precisely because the individual has been ignored as a constituent element. By acknowledging the individual's self awareness as author of their own social conduct and of the social forms in which they participate, this informs social and cultural processes rather than the individual being passively modelled by them.

    Chapter 1 The neglected self; Chapter 2 The creative self; Chapter 3 Initiating the self into society; Chapter 4 Social transformations of the self; Chapter 5 The primacy of the self?; Chapter 6 The thinking self; Chapter 7 Individualism, individuality, selfhood;

    Biography

    Anthony P. Cohen