Kirjahaku

Anthony Cohen makes a distinct break with earlier approaches to the study of community, which treated the subject in largely structural terms. His view is interpretive and experiential, seeing the community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary among its members. He delineates a concept applicable to local and ethnic communities through which people see themselves as belonging to society. The emphasis on boundary is sensitive to the circumstances in which people become aware of the implications of belonging to a community, and describes how they symbolise and utilise these boundaries to give substance to their values and identities.

Anthony Cohen makes a distinct break with earlier approaches to the study of community, which treated the subject in largely structural terms. His view is interpretive and experiential, seeing the community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary among its members. He delineates a concept applicable to local and ethnic communities through which people see themselves as belonging to society. The emphasis on boundary is sensitive to the circumstances in which people become aware of the implications of belonging to a community, and describes how they symbolise and utilise these boundaries to give substance to their values and identities.

I antropologien og sociologien har det hidtil været almindeligt at operere med meget generelle, stereotype forestillinger om fremmede folks identitet. Man har aflæst adfærd, tro, historie osv. og ment, at man derved fik fat i det centrale af de pågældendes selvbevidsthed. Og man har som regel helt glemt at medtænke sine egne forudsætninger, dvs. sin egen selvbevidsthed eller selvhed. Det står nu klart, at den antropologiske og tværkulturelle forståelse bliver meget begrænset og problematisk, hvis ikke man i langt højere grad trænger ind i de forskellige udformninger af selvbevidsthed og åbent inddrager sin egen selvhed. Dvs. gør en dyd ud af den afgørende vanskelighed, når man vil krydse kulturelle spor og traditioner. Selvbevidsthed – en alternativ identitets-antropologi rækker som pionerarbejde derfor langt ind over det sociologiske, psykologiske og filosofiske felt – og kender på befriende vis forskel på nødvendig udforskning af selvbevidsthed, selvhed og identitet og politisk reaktionær individualisme. Selvbevidsthed udkom første gang på dansk i 1995 og genudgives nu i Hans Reitzels Forlags serie Klassikere.