Sidky, H.

About the author: H. Sidky is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He holds a PhD in cultural anthropology, specializing in ecological anthropology, the anthropology of religion, and anthropological theory and the history of anthropological thought. His area specializations include Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Nepal. He is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles.

Critique of Postmodern Anthropology - in Defense of Disciplinary Origins and Traditions

2003 0-7734-6781-5
This book provides a focused critique of the currently fashionable literary/interpretive approaches in cultural anthropology and their challenge to science, scientific anthropology, and disciplinary origins and traditions. It takes on issues that must be addressed in light of what is shown to be the interpretivists’ unrelenting misrepresentation of the anthropological enterprise, science, and scientific paradigms in anthropology. The issues addressed encompass a number of highly significant intellectual/philosophical/theoretical questions with far-reaching implications for the discipline of anthropology as a whole. The challenge to disciplinary origins and traditions is emphatically addressed on empirical, theoretical, and epistemological grounds and in the context of the overall intellectual history and development of American anthropology. No other study engages the anti-science perspective in such an emphatic, uncompromising, jargon-free manner.