An Anthropological Perspective. A Particular Case

Abstract

This essay addresses the idea of perspective as it is suggested by C. Geertz. This idea presupposes that (wo)man interacts with the surrounding physical world while taking separate yet overlapping positions grounded in such frames as common-sense, aesthetics, religion, science, and others. The author proposes to introduce another perspective which speaks for a unique frame which (wo)man composes while interacting with other (wo)men. This is an anthropological perspective framed as a particular case. The author refers to a number of American anthropologists who directly or indirectly yet critically appeal to Geertz’s heritage to show what is necessary to compose the foundations of the perspective in question. In this respect, G. Marcus’s and M. Fischer’s crisis of representation, L. Abu-Lughod’s the particular, J. Limón’s modernity-postmodernity relation, and P. Rabinow’s, A. Stavrianakis’s and J. Faubion’s triad of the present, the actual and the contemporary is discussed. The author offers a model to analyse the interaction in question. At the same time, the author suggests that the anthropological perspective should be understood in terms of self-awareness and complexity to approach other (wo)men creatively and critically.