Overview
Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign—for example, a cattle car—and its referent, the Holocaust. These “sign-vehicles” serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only “carry people around,” but also “carry” how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history.
Full Product Details
Author: David Lipset ,
Richard Handler
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Imprint: Berghahn Books
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.40cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.472kg
ISBN: 9781782383758
ISBN 10: 1782383751
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 01 August 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This book offers ethnographic journeys into the daily work of cultural imaginations by giving attention to what is generally neglected: their vehicles. Not only functional supports or futile material dresses, cars, boats or planes are here delightedly addressed as morale-boosting devices engaged in situated social relations - These essays show that vehicular units are always participation units - they are always vernacular units of cultural agency. * Pierre Lanoy, Universite Libre de Bruxelles - An excellent and original manuscript, a fine example of what comparative anthropology can achieve. Furthermore, in addition to its main topic and objectives (about particular metaphors, what they 'do' and how they 'work'), it addresses key issues in the study of objects, material culture, and techniques, namely the involvement of materiality in non-verbal communication. * Pierre Lemonnier, Universite d'Aix-Marseille
This book offers ethnographic journeys into the daily work of cultural imaginations by giving attention to what is generally neglected: their vehicles. Not only functional supports or futile material dresses, cars, boats or planes are here delightedly addressed as morale-boosting devices engaged in situated social relations - These essays show that vehicular units are always participation units - they are always vernacular units of cultural agency. * Pierre Lanoy, Universite Libre de Bruxelles - An excellent and original manuscript, a fine example of what comparative anthropology can achieve. Furthermore, in addition to its main topic and objectives (about particular metaphors, what they 'do' and how they 'work'), it addresses key issues in the study of objects, material culture, and techniques, namely the involvement of materiality in non-verbal communication. * Pierre Lemonnier, Universite d'Aix-Marseille
Author Information
David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has conducted long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea since 1981. His most recent book is called Yabar: Alienations of Men in a Papua New Guinea Modernity (2017). He has also published articles on a variety of topics about changing masculinity in Murik culture. He is currently working on a book on concept of place in the Anthropology of the Anthropocene.
