Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: communities
From: claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:36:42 GMT
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900

In article <717479955snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au writes:
>(nelson_p@apollo <---> claird@Neosoft exchange deleted for space)
>
>Peter, I don't think Cameron Laird was trying to sound cagey; it is
>difficult in the social sciences to be direct about the real situation
>people find themselves in without the risk of invading their privacy,
>and being flamed on the network.
Thanks, Gil, but Peter was right; my disclaimers *did*
read rather archly.  Part of my responsibility in
posting in this privileged forum is to make myself
clear.  I was hoping others would pitch in on refer-
ences, as I've been away from anthropology too long to
contribute much more than perspective.  Also, I
thought my follow-up already at patience's limit of
length, and that's what I chose to elide, at least
for that day.
>
>It is also highly problematic to insist on references, when the academic
That's part of Peter's contribution, though; he has a
good instinct for what parts of a dialogue deserve the
tempering and insight that inevitably follow a search
through the literature.  I would MUCH welcome a Usenet
community which is a best slower to reply, and a bit
better grounded in what it replies.
>record is at best limited and a reasonable ethnographic approach would
>be to go and visit communities yourself. With your access to diaries
>and journals an extremely valuable comparative study could be made.
To balance the evidence of one's own eyes, I'll offer
a few bibliographic notes here.

One might start with the *Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft*
dialectic; someone else can do a better job than I
at offering a contemporary reference to this topic.

For perspectives on community and techno-political
change, consider

	Bernstein, Basil
	1971	Class, Codes and Control.  London:
		Routledge & Kegan Paul.

	Braudel, Fernand
	1979	The Structures of Everyday Live:
		The Limits of the Possible.  Trans-
		lated in revision by Sian Reynolds.
		New York:  Harper & Row, 1981.
		[or anything else by Braudel]

	Burns, Tom, and S. B. Saul, editors
	1967	Social Theory and Economic Change.
		London:  Social Science Paperbacks.

	Eliade, Mircea
	1973	Australian Religions.  Ithaca:
		Cornell University Press.
		[Gil, is Eliade still respected in
		Australia?  I know his work admits
		correction, but do folks there gen-
		erally see it as a positive
		contribution?]

	Fraser, Douglas
	1968	Village Planning in the Primitive
		World.  New York:  Braziller.

	Holland, Ray
	1977	Self and Social Context.  London:
		Macmillan.

	Idris-Soven, Ahmed, Elizabeth Idris-Soven,
	and Mary K. Vaughan, editors
	1978	The World as a Company Town:  Multi-
		national Corporations and Social
		Change.  The Hague:  Mouton.

	Nelson, Benjamin
	1949	The Idea of Usury:  From Tribal Brother-
		hood to Universal Otherhood.  Chicago:
		University of Chicago Press.

	Stover, Leon E.
	1974	The Cultural Ecology of Chinese Civi-
		lization:  Peasants and Elites in the
		last of the Agrarian States.  New
		York:  Mentor.

I emphasize:  this is *not* a specialty of mine.  Others
should be able to give more pointed pointers.  I know,
for example, that Levi-Strauss and Marvin Harris and
Moscovici and Lakoff and Polyani and Sahlins and Waller-
stein and Mauss and ... merit attention in a compilation
like this, but I can't now think of good places to start
in their corpora.
			.
			.
			.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546