The Development of Cognitive Anthropology

Roy D'Andrade examines how cultural knowledge is organised within and between human minds.

Roy G. D'Andrade (Author)

9780521459761, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 January 1995

288 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

"...provides the best overview of cognitive anthropology we have to date....D'Andrade does a masterful and balanced job of presenting the contributions of a range of perspectives while making his own positions clear along the way....clear, authoritative, and useful....provides some important guideposts about how we might pursue a research agenda without reinventing too many wheels." James V. Wertsch, Contemporary Psychology

In an historical account of the growth and development of the field of cognitive anthropology, Roy D'Andrade examines how cultural knowledge is organised within and between human minds. He begins by examining the research carried out during the l950s and l960s which was concerned with how different cultures classify kinship relationships and the natural environment, and then traces the development of more complex and sophisticated cognitive theories of classification in anthropology which took place in the l970s and l980s. In an analysis of more recent developments, the author considers work involving cultural models, emotion, motivation and action. He concludes with a summary of the theoretical perspective of cognitive anthropology.

1. Background
2. Towards an analysis of meaning
3. The classic feature model
4. Extension of the feature model
5. Folk taxonomies
6. The growth of schema theory
7. Models and theories
8. Cultural representations and psychological processes
9. Cognitive processes and personality
10. Summing up
References
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]