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2 - The History of Sexuality and Anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2024

By
Joan Vendrell Ferré
Edited by
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks  and
Mathew Kuefler
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Mathew Kuefler
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
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Summary

This chapter discusses the contribution of anthropology to the understanding of the diversity of practices and attitudes towards sexualized bodies developed by different human cultures, beginning with the works of classical anthropologists, including E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Margaret Mead and Bronisław Malinowski. It discusses Marxist, feminist, and postmodern anthropology, and reflects on the influence of Michel Foucault, particularly his notion of the dispositif, the device of sexuality. The chapter argues that the device of sexuality—that is, that there is such a thing as “sexuality”—is modern and Western. The sexual life of the peoples studied by anthropologists is an inseparable part of their social order and its reproduction, and in no way constitutes a separate sphere of existence that can be studied as such, nor does it constitute the core of any identity, either personal or collective. The task of anthropology consists in restoring how these peoples deal with the sexual in their own social and cultural terms, respecting their radical otherness.

Keywords

anthropologysexualityculturediversitygenderbodies
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 23 - 44
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Cardín, Alberto. Guerreros, chamanes y travestís: Indicios de homosexualidad entre los exóticos. Barcelona: Tusquets, 1984.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966.Google Scholar
Ellison, Peter T. On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Man and Woman among the Azande. New York: Free Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Ford, Clellan S., and Beach, Frank A.. Patterns of Sexual Behavior. New York: Harper & Brothers and Paul B. Hoeber Medical Books, 1952.Google Scholar
Gagnon, John H. Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973.Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice. La production des grands hommes: Pouvoir et domination masculine chez les Baruya de Nouvelle-Guinée. Paris: Fayard, 1982.Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice Métamorphoses de la parenté. Paris: Fayard, 2004.Google Scholar
Gregor, Thomas. Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulik, Robert Hans van. Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca.1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. 1961; Leiden: Brill, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herdt, Gilbert. Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.Google Scholar
Herdt, Gilbert Third Sex, Third Gender. New York: Zone Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Kulick, Don, and Willson, Margaret, eds. Taboo: Sex, Identity and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork. London: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Le Breton, David. Les passions ordinaires: Anthropologie des émotions. Paris: A. Colin, 1998.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronisław. Sex and Repression in Savage Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929.Google Scholar
Markowitz, Fran, and Ashkenazi, Michael, eds. Sex, Sexuality, and the Anthropologist. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1928.Google Scholar
Nieto, José Antonio. La sexualidad de las personas mayores en España. Madrid: Imserso, 1996.Google Scholar
Nieto, José Antonio Sexualidad y deseo: Crítica antropológica de la cultura. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España, 2002.Google Scholar
Nieto, José Antonio, ed. Antropología de la sexualidad y diversidad cultural. Madrid: TALASA, 2003.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B., and Whitehead, Harriet, eds. Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Michelle Zimbalist, Rosaldo, and Lamphere, Louise, eds. Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974.Google Scholar

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