Jean-Guy A. Goulet – författare

What happens when anthropologists lose themselves during fieldwork while attempting to understand divergent cultures? When they stray from rigorous agendas and are forced to confront radically unexpected or unexplained experiences? In Extraordinary Anthropology leading ethnographers from across the globe discuss the importance of the deeply personal and emotionally volatile "ecstatic" side of fieldwork. Anthropologists who have worked in communities in Central America, North America, Australia, Africa, and Asia share their intimate experiences of tranformations in the field through details of significant dreams, haunting visions, and their own conflicting emotional tensions. Their experiences demonstrate the necessary fluidity of research agendas, the value of going beyond an accepted (and safe) cultural and academic vantage point, and the inevitability of wrestling with tension and unhappiness when faced with irreconcilable cultural and psychological dichotomies. The contributors explore ways in which conventional research methods can be adapted to creatively engage the intellectual, ethical, and practical dimensions of these dislocations and capitalize on them. Unsettling and revealing, Extraordinary Anthropology will spark debate and reflection among anthropologists for years to come.

This innovative study reveals the creative world of a Native community. Once seminomadic hunters and gatherers who traveled by horse wagon, canoe, and dog sled, the Dene Tha of northern Canada today live in government-built homes in the settlement of Chateh. Their lives are a distinct blend of old and new, in which traditional forms of social control, healing, and praying entwine with services supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a nursing station, and a Roman Catholic church. Many older cultural beliefs and practices remain: ghosts linger, reincarnating and sometimes causing deaths; past and future are interpreted through the Prophet Dance; "animal helpers" become lifelong companions and sources of power; and personal visions and experiences are considered the roots of true knowledge. Why and how are such striking beliefs and practices still vital to the Dene Tha? Drawing on extensive fieldwork at Chateh, anthropologist Jean-Guy Goulet delineates the interconnections between the strands of meaning and experience with which the Dene Tha constitute and creatively engage their world. Goulet's insights into the Dene Tha's ways of knowing were gained through directly experiencing their lifeway rather than through formal instruction. This experiential perspective makes his study especially illuminating, providing an intimate glimpse of a remarkable and enduring Native community.

This insightful three-volume set examines faith through the social and cultural perspective of anthropology, sociology, and religious studies, shedding light on the role of religion in the human experience.Why is human suffering and the existence of evil part of the human experience? How does religious doctrine establish one's identity? In what ways does religion interact with and shape the social order? This thought-provoking work ponders these questions and explores the concept of religion from various perspectives: as a tool for self and community-based spiritual awareness, as a set of practices that translates faith into interaction with others, and as a cornerstone of society for those who seek to harness—or hinder—its influence.Written in accessible and inviting language, each volume focuses on a particular dimension of religion. The first book examines religious experience in the modern world and explores suffering in religious faiths, the second volume centers around ritual and pilgrimage, and the last book analyzes the controversial relationship between religion and societies. The content features such thought-provoking topics as death and green burials, sexuality and sex trade, and how and why evil manifests in the human experience.