Beyond Boundaries by Gisli Palsson

Anthropology, it is often
argued, is an art of translation. Recently, however, social theorists have
raised serious doubts about the translator’s enterprise. Over the last few
years the human social and ecological habitat has seen spectacular
developments. Modern humans inhabit a ‘global village’ in a very genuine
sense. What lessons may be learned from these developments for anthropology?
In Beyond Boundaries, ten anthropologists from different countries address
the problem of social understanding and cultural translation from different
theoretical as well as ethnographic perspectives. Quite appropriately, given
the general theme of the volume, the contributors represent several different
academic traditions and communities – Britain, Finland, France, Iceland,
Israel, Japan, Norway, the former Soviet Union, and Sweden.