Hunter-gatherer cosmologies

Low, C (2018) 'Hunter-gatherer cosmologies.' In: Callan, H, ed. The international encyclopedia of anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780470657225 doi: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2185

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2185

Abstract

Cosmology is one of the three key domains used by anthropologists to define hunter‐gatherers. Although there is much variety found among hunter‐gatherers, broad continuities are typically envisaged across a range of cosmological themes including animism, shamanism, double creation, sacred geographies, tricksters, and worldview. Since the 1980s, researchers have problematized many of these categories and taken cosmology from the field of “primitive” religion and spirits to human relations with other humans, and human relations with nonhuman persons. By interrogating many of the assumptions about subject–object relations and human relationships with nature, which anthropologists have received as part of their European intellectual heritage, scholars of hunter‐gatherer cosmology are reuniting spheres of knowledge of science and philosophy that have been divorced since the nineteenth century.

Item Type: Book Chapter or Section
Divisions: School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Date Deposited: 31 Dec 2018 19:35
Last Modified: 15 Aug 2021 09:51
URI / Page ID: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/11454
Request a change to this item or report an issue Request a change to this item or report an issue
Update item (repository staff only) Update item (repository staff only)