How We Think They Think Anthropological Approaches To Cognition, Memory, And Literacy

These essays by one of anthropology's most original theorists consider such fundamental questions as: Is cognition language-based? How reliable a guide to memory are people's narratives about themselves? What connects the ?social recalling? studied by anthropologists to the ?autobiographical memory? studied by psychologists? Now gathered in accessi

Part 1 Introduction -- Cognition -- Language, Anthropology and Cognitive Science -- What Goes Without Saying: The Conceptualization of Zafimaniry Society -- Cognition and Ethnography -- Domain-Specificity, Living Kinds and Symbolism -- Part 2 Memory -- Internal and External Memory: Different Ways of Being in History -- The Resurrection of the House Amongst the Zafimaniry of Madagascar -- Time, Narratives and the Multiplicity of Representations of the Past -- Autobiographical Memory and the Historical Memory of the More Distant Past -- Part 3 Literacy -- Astrology and Writing in Madagascar -- Literacy and Enlightenment -- The Uses of Schooling and Literacy in a Zafimaniry Village 1 -- Why do Malagasy Cows Speak French?

Maurice E.F. Bloch is professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.