British Subjects

Nigel Rapport Professor of Anthropological and Philosophical Studies,University of St. Andrews

'With the publication of 'British Subjects' the recent work which has been done on the Anthropology of Britain will at last receive the recognition it has long deserved. Nigel Rapport has brought together a number of eminent scholars who have already made substantial contributions to our anthropological understanding of contemporary British society. In specially written chapters deriving directly from their fieldwork they demonstrate how anthropological research can throw light not only on small communities and interest groups, but on institutions such as primary education and professional performing companies, as well as on cultural domains such as the nature of social knowledge and the pursuit of leisure and entertainment. Those who associate anthropology only with an interest in simple societies in remote corners of the globe are in for a pleasant intellectual surprise. Those who have long been aware that anthropology is as much interested in 'us' as in 'them' will find welcome This book will be a landmark in the history of the discipline. It is formidable in a host of ways: in the range of scale and range of approaches, in the subtlety and richness of its observations, in the issues it develops and by its critical acuity with regard to the selective tendencies of certain anthropologists in their study of minorities. L'Homme

• Part I: Introduction- ‘Best of British!’: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Britain, Part II: Nationalism, Contestation and the Performance of Tradition Part III: Strategies of Modernity: Heritage, Leisure, Dissociation Part IV: The Appropriation of Discourse Part V: Methodologies and Ethnomethodologies Part VI: The Making (and Unmaking) of Community: Ethnicity, Religiosity, Locality Part VII: Epilogue