Book description
We live in an era marked by an accelerating rate of species death,
but since the early days of the discipline, anthropology has
contemplated the death of languages, cultural groups, and ways of
life. The essays in this collection examine processes of-and our
understanding of-extinction across various domains. The contributors
argue that extinction events can be catalysts for new cultural,
social, environmental, and technological developments-that extinction
processes can, paradoxically, be productive as well as destructive.
The essays consider a number of widely publicized cases: island
species in the Galápagos and Madagascar; the death of Native American
languages; ethnic minorities under pressure to assimilate in China;
cloning as a form of species regeneration; and the tiny hominid Homo
floresiensis fossils ("hobbits") recently identified in
Indonesia. The Anthropology of Extinction offers compelling
explorations of issues of widespread concern.
"The Anthropology of Extinction offers compelling
explorations of issues of widespread concern." -The Birdbooker Report
Genese Marie Sodikoff is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology at Rutgers University, Newark. She is
author of Forest and Labor in Madagascar: From Colonial Concession to
Global Biosphere (IUP, 2012).
