Roy Ellen was educated at the London School of Economics and is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he has taught since 1973. His numerous and varied publications include Environment, Subsistence and System (1982), The Cultural Relations of Classification (1993), and most recently, On the Edge of the Banda Zone (2003).

"Probably more than any other British anthropologist, Roy Ellen is associated with the study of ethnobiology; his has also long ranked among the leading names in the field ... Both readers new to Ellen as well as those already familiar with his work will find this collection rewarding." —American Anthropologist"... an important and very worthwhile collection ... a seminal and enduring contribution to anthropological knowledge…a clear and refreshing overview of the sub-discipline, as well as affirming ethnobiology’s crucial role in the continuing development of anthropology as a multi-discipline." —Brian Morris in JRAI"...a remarkable synthesis of recent studies in the cognitive and ethnosciences and symbolic anthropology, three areas of scholarship linked in multiple ways.[This book] is an absolute must for all those interested in these subjects." —L'homme"I ... am deeply impressed by Ellen's ability to connect so many seemingly contradictory themes of contemporary anthropology within the holistic frame of the 'categorical impulse'" —Journal of Anthropological Research

• PrefaceList of FiguresList of TablesChapter 1. Introduction: Categories, Classification and Cognitive AnthropologyChapter 2. Anthropological Studies of Classification (1996)Chapter 3. Classifying in its Social Context (1979)Chapter 4. Variable Constructs in Nuaulu Zoological Classification (1975)Chapter 5. Anatomical Classification and the Semiotics of the Body (1977)Chapter 6. Grass, Grerb or Weed? The Ethnography of a Plant Life-form (1991)Chapter 7. Palms and the Prototypicality of Trees (1998)Chapter 8. The Inedible and the Uneatable (1998)Chapter 9. Fetishism: A Cognitive Approach (1988)Chapter 10. The Cognitive Geometry of Nature: A Contextual Approach (1996)BibliographyIndex

Roy Ellen was educated at the London School of Economics and is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he has taught since 1973. His numerous and varied publications include Environment, Subsistence and System (1982), The Cultural Relations of Classification (1993), and most recently, On the Edge of the Banda Zone (2003).

"Probably more than any other British anthropologist, Roy Ellen is associated with the study of ethnobiology; his has also long ranked among the leading names in the field ... Both readers new to Ellen as well as those already familiar with his work will find this collection rewarding." —American Anthropologist"... an important and very worthwhile collection ... a seminal and enduring contribution to anthropological knowledge…a clear and refreshing overview of the sub-discipline, as well as affirming ethnobiology’s crucial role in the continuing development of anthropology as a multi-discipline." —Brian Morris in JRAI"...a remarkable synthesis of recent studies in the cognitive and ethnosciences and symbolic anthropology, three areas of scholarship linked in multiple ways.[This book] is an absolute must for all those interested in these subjects." —L'homme"I ... am deeply impressed by Ellen's ability to connect so many seemingly contradictory themes of contemporary anthropology within the holistic frame of the 'categorical impulse'" —Journal of Anthropological Research

• PrefaceList of FiguresList of TablesChapter 1. Introduction: Categories, Classification and Cognitive AnthropologyChapter 2. Anthropological Studies of Classification (1996)Chapter 3. Classifying in its Social Context (1979)Chapter 4. Variable Constructs in Nuaulu Zoological Classification (1975)Chapter 5. Anatomical Classification and the Semiotics of the Body (1977)Chapter 6. Grass, Grerb or Weed? The Ethnography of a Plant Life-form (1991)Chapter 7. Palms and the Prototypicality of Trees (1998)Chapter 8. The Inedible and the Uneatable (1998)Chapter 9. Fetishism: A Cognitive Approach (1988)Chapter 10. The Cognitive Geometry of Nature: A Contextual Approach (1996)BibliographyIndex

Roy Ellen was educated at the London School of Economics and is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he has taught since 1973. His numerous and varied publications include Environment, Subsistence and System (1982), The Cultural Relations of Classification (1993), and most recently, On the Edge of the Banda Zone (2003).

"Probably more than any other British anthropologist, Roy Ellen is associated with the study of ethnobiology; his has also long ranked among the leading names in the field ... Both readers new to Ellen as well as those already familiar with his work will find this collection rewarding." —American Anthropologist"... an important and very worthwhile collection ... a seminal and enduring contribution to anthropological knowledge…a clear and refreshing overview of the sub-discipline, as well as affirming ethnobiology’s crucial role in the continuing development of anthropology as a multi-discipline." —Brian Morris in JRAI"...a remarkable synthesis of recent studies in the cognitive and ethnosciences and symbolic anthropology, three areas of scholarship linked in multiple ways.[This book] is an absolute must for all those interested in these subjects." —L'homme"I ... am deeply impressed by Ellen's ability to connect so many seemingly contradictory themes of contemporary anthropology within the holistic frame of the 'categorical impulse'" —Journal of Anthropological Research

• PrefaceList of FiguresList of TablesChapter 1. Introduction: Categories, Classification and Cognitive AnthropologyChapter 2. Anthropological Studies of Classification (1996)Chapter 3. Classifying in its Social Context (1979)Chapter 4. Variable Constructs in Nuaulu Zoological Classification (1975)Chapter 5. Anatomical Classification and the Semiotics of the Body (1977)Chapter 6. Grass, Grerb or Weed? The Ethnography of a Plant Life-form (1991)Chapter 7. Palms and the Prototypicality of Trees (1998)Chapter 8. The Inedible and the Uneatable (1998)Chapter 9. Fetishism: A Cognitive Approach (1988)Chapter 10. The Cognitive Geometry of Nature: A Contextual Approach (1996)BibliographyIndex