Anthropological Toolkit

David Zeitlyn has been working with Mambila people in Cameroon since 1985. He taught at the University of Kent, Canterbury, for fifteen years before moving to Oxford as Professor of Social Anthropology in 2010. His recent books include Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers (Routledge, 2020).

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsIntroduction60 Words To Think WithA. Affordance; Agnosia‬; Aporia; Archaeology; Argumentation theory; Autopoiesis; Axonometric projectionB. Bifocal ethnography; Blueprints, scores and maps; Boundary objectsC. Cabling; Catachresis; Chronotopes and chronotypes; Collage/montage; Colligation; CommitmentD. Dialetheism/paraconsistencyE. Ekphrasis;Emic and etic; Epistemography; Epiphanies; Equifinality; Equivocation (controlled equivocation);. Essentially contested concepts; Exaptation;. ExemplarsF. Faithfulness; Figuration; Finitism; meaning finitism; Forbearing and ‘subjective counterfactuals’H. Hapax; Hesse NetsI. Incommensurability; Infirming; Instauration; Ironic detachment; Irrealism; IsolarionL. Life writingM. MosaicsN. Non-ergodicityO. OstensionP. Palimpsest memory; Partial views and partiality; Pattern language; Paraethnography; Positioning theory; ProsopographyR. Repleteness; Representation/non-representation; Representational forceS. Sgraffiti; Stochastic variation; SynaesthesiaT. Teleoanalysis; Things; Translation (anthropological translation)V. Vagueness; VignettesW. Wicked problemsCoda: So What? A Worked Example of Making Sense of Ethnographic FragmentIndex

“Reflecting this eclecticism of social science research and writing, this slim volume is a good complement to college and university programs in the social sciences. Its message and contributions will also resonate with practicing professionals in social science fields…Recommended.” • Choice“The book’s pocket size and relatively short length are deceptive, given what it actually offers…While it works really well as a pedagogical tool for teaching both ethnography and anthropological theory, it offers more than that. Zeitlyn has written a book that is inspirational for seasoned anthropologists too… This is a methodologically and theoretically grounded starting point for appreciating both the complexity and messiness in people’s conduct and lives, while also not shying away from trying to apprehend the patchworks (or dapples) of ‘discernible patterns in the way that people live their lives’.” • Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale“An Anthropological Toolkit is an engaging and readable rethink of how ethnographers might approach their materials… The chapters will help any reader think more richly about their interpretations of the world.” • Anthropological Journal of European Culture“I have much enjoyed reading this book. It is a rich collection of ideas and images to support empirical qualitative social science. It is phrased for anthropologists in the first instance, but is applicable as well to historians, sociologists, and anyone else trying to deliver a close and insightful account of social life.” • Michael Carrithers, Durham University