Bringing together for the first time selected articles by the distinguished anthropologist, this volume presents a comprehensive survey of Herskovits' exhaustive study of the Negro in the Western Hemisphere. The author came to perceive the Afroamerican field as a laboratory in which hypotheses of the widest scope in the study of acculturation could be tested, with ethnohistory as the control factor. Moreover, he regarded acculturation as a process of mutual exchange rather than a matter of members of minority groups taking over the cultural elements of a dominant majority. Herskovits also insisted that the study of culture be holisitc, and that the arts and values of a people be given full weight. The volume is divided into eight major sections entitled The Afroamerican Field—A Laboratory for the Study of Man; Theory and Method; Ethnohistory—The Laboratory Control in Studies of Acculturation; Ethno-psychology; The Arts; Cult Life in Brazil; The World View of an Urban Community—Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana; and Reinterpretations.
| ISBN: | 9780253340405 |
| Publication date: | 10th August 2004 |
| Author: | Frances S. Herskovits |
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 396 pages |
| Genres: |
Social and cultural history Ethnic studies |