The Humanistic Relevance of Anthropology: Further Writings on Anthropology by J. V. Ferreira

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In the present volume we have collected another set of papers written by J.V. Ferreira on theoretical and methodological issues of anthropology. These papers were written between 1968 and 1991. Ferreira was the fifth head of the Department of Sociology of the University of Bombay (now Mumbai) from 1976 to 1982 and could therefore build on the extraordinarily rich anthropological work of G.S. Ghurye, the specialist work of K.M. Kapadia in the sociology of family, and the politically committed work of A.R. Desai in political and rural sociology. As an intellectual with wide-ranging interests, J.V Ferreira must have felt privileged to use the resources of a department led by the early stalwarts of Indian anthropology and sociology and their many brilliant research students over nearly five decades.

There are quite a few themes in the present collection which are also covered in Ferreira's writings in the first volume (Integral Anthropology: Selected Anthropological Writings of J.V. Ferreira, Jaipur: Rawat, 2012). There are also repetitions in the papers (which we haven't deleted for the sake of flow of argument), and most of the data Ferreira used are by now outdated. Also, some of his ideas have not survived the time in which they were formed or have become part and parcel of modern anthropological thinking and therefore lost its shine, for instance, the 'post-modern', and the frequent references to anthropological thought in 'German-speaking countries' could well be understood as an obsession. But the value of these papers lies more in the mix and commitment they are showing in their theoretically-oriented elaborations, yet rather pragmatic in character; and in their problem-oriented reflections, rather more speculative in character. Ferreira loved to do so in the form of review essays (see, e.g., Nos. 3 and 5 in this collection).

One thing which all of Ferreira's writings have in common is that they are consistent in their reflections on anthropology. Whether he writes on tribal mythology or India's composite culture, on education or the middle class, on population development or the ailments of anthropological research, Ferreira writes from a 'committed anthropological position'. He calls it occasionally his 'anthropological standpoint'. We should like to call it 'anthropological sphere' denoting through this Ferreira's single-minded desire to see and understand people in as wide a context as possible. We have selected the present contributions to give readers an opportunity to get more familiar with this 'anthropological sphere' and the ways Ferreira forms and uses it.

**Contents and Sample Pages**