"Remotely Global"

Book Review # 92239

Anthropology
English > Analysis
Ethnic Studies

"Remotely Global"

An anthropological review of Charles Piot's book, "Remotely Global".

1,787 words () | 0 sources | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes the critically acclaimed ethnography, "Remotely Global" by Charles Piot. The paper provides an incite into the author's own analysis of the Kabre people whom he lived with and observed. The paper shows how Piot calls upon every aspect of Kabre culture to illustrate his point that the Kabre have been constantly shaped and molded by colonial contexts and that the Kabre play an active role in shaping this notion of modernity.

From the Paper:

"Charles Piot's ethnography, Remotely Global, is a provocative anthropological narrative that defies stereotypes and deviates from the norm. Piot accomplishes this and more, all the while adhering to a post-modern approach that argues for an alternative modernity. He condemns previous Eurocentric concepts of individualist social theory, theories like Structural-Functionalism, Practice Theory, Marxism, etc. that misconstrue Africa and the West. Remotely Global examines the Kabre diaspora, while his fieldwork largely took place in northern Togo, namely Kuwde. It is the Kabre who he feels exemplify this alternative modernity for which he is such a compelling advocate. Through detailed analyses of these peoples, a harsh critique of orientalism, and accompanying support for the debate his book seeks to wage, his ethnographic work is brought to fruition."