Since the 1950s, anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz has been at the
forefront of efforts to integrate the disciplines of anthropology
and history. Author of
Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar
in Modern History and other groundbreaking works, he was one of
the first scholars to anticipate and critique "globalization
studies." However, a strong tradition of epistemologically
sophisticated and theoretically informed empiricism of the sort
advanced by Mintz has yet to become a cornerstone of contemporary
anthropological scholarship. This collection of essays by leading
anthropologists and historians serves as an intervention that rests
on Mintz's rigorously historicist ethnographic work, which has long
predicted the methodological crisis in anthropology today.
Contributors to this volume build on Mintzean interdisciplinarity
to provide productive ways to theorize the everyday life of local
groups and communities, nation-states, and regions and the
interconnections among them. Consisting of theoretical and case
studies of Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, and Papua
New Guinea,
Empirical Futures demonstrates how Mintzean
perspectives advance our understanding of the relationship among
empirical approaches, the uses of ethnographic and historical data
and theory-building, and the study of these from both local and
global vantage points.
Contributors:
George Baca, Goucher College
Frederick Cooper, New York University
Virginia R. Dominguez, University of Illinois
Frederick Errington, Trinity College
Deborah Gewertz, Amherst College
Juan Giusti-Cordero, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras
Aisha Khan, New York University
Samuel Martinez, University of Connecticut
Stephan Palmie, University of Chicago
Jane Schneider, City University of New York Graduate Center
Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan