Knots Ethnography of the Moral in Culture and Social Thought

Knots are well known as symbols of moral relationships. This book develops an exciting new view of this otherwise taken-for-granted image and considers their metaphoric value in and for moral order. In chapters that focus on Japan, China, Europe, South America and in several Pacific Island societies, granular ethnography depicts how knots are deployed to express unity in daily and ritual embodiment, political authority and the cosmos, as well as in social thought. The volume will be of interest to anthropologists and other scholars concerned with metaphor and symbolism, material culture and technology.

1 Knots as moral relationship David Lipset and Eric K. Silverman Part 1: Personhood and Society 2 Knots in Sumo Wrestling and Japan Kenji Tierney 3 Knots and entanglements in Japan Ellen Schattschneider 4 Canoes, knots and the concept of the person in the Sepik (Papua New Guinea) Eric K. Silverman and David Lipset 5 Making Manus social fabric (Papua New Guinea) Michelle Nayahmui Rooney Part 2: State and Cosmos 6 The knotted empire of the Inka State Gary Urton 7 Weaving metaphors and cosmo-political thought in early China David Pankenier 8 Knots at the edge of order in the Northeast Kula Ring (Papua New Guinea) Frederick H. Damon 9 The knot in the Pacific body politic Susanne Küchler 10 Knots of authority and sanctity in ancient Hawaii Adrienne Kaeppler Part 3: Social Thought 11 Anthropology’s entanglement with ‘Europe’ Sarah Green 12 Afterword: Knots as Moral Reflexivity David Lipset and Eric K. Silverman

David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, USA. Eric K. Silverman, former Professor of Anthropology at Wheelock College, is now Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, USA.