Marilyn Strathern
British anthropologist who analyzed kinship, gender, and property in Melanesia and Euro-American contexts.
Most quoted
"Anthropology is not just about understanding others; it is also about understanding ourselves through others."
— from Partial Connections, 1992
"The world is not simply 'out there' to be discovered; it is constantly being made and remade."
— from Partial Connections, 1991
"The anthropologist's task is not to explain away difference, but to render it intelligible."
— from Property, Substance and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things, 1999
All quotes by Marilyn Strathern (107)
The ethnographic present is always a present that is already past.
Anthropology is not just about understanding others; it is also about understanding ourselves through others.
The gift is not a thing, but a relationship.
Knowledge is not simply acquired; it is made.
Culture is not a bounded entity, but a set of connections and disconnections.
The anthropologist's task is not to explain away difference, but to render it intelligible.
Feminist anthropology is not about women, but about gender as a cultural construct.
The concept of 'society' is itself a cultural construct.
To describe is already to theorize.
The ethnographic encounter is always a partial connection.
The idea of 'the individual' is a culturally specific notion.
Anthropology is a discipline of constant self-reflection.
The act of comparison is always an act of translation.
The concept of 'nature' is as much a cultural construct as 'culture' itself.
We do not simply observe; we participate in the making of what we observe.
The 'native's point of view' is not a given, but an achievement of ethnographic inquiry.
The anthropologist is always a 'stranger' in the field, and in their own society.
The concept of 'ownership' is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices.
To understand is to be able to make connections.
The idea of 'progress' is a culturally specific narrative.
Contemporaries of Marilyn Strathern
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Marilyn Strathern (1941).