Life Within Limits

Well-being in a World of Want

By: Michael Jackson

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Paperback | 16 February 2011

At a Glance

Paperback
246 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 1.32

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The sense that well-being remains elusive, transitory, and unevenly distributed is felt by the rich as well as the poor, and in all societies. To explore this condition of existential dissatisfaction, the anthropologist Michael Jackson traveled to Sierra Leone, described in a recent UN report as the "least livable" country in the world. There he revisited the village where he did his first ethnographic fieldwork in 1969-70 and lived in 1979. Jackson writes that Africans have always faced forces from without that imperil their lives and livelihoods. Though these forces have assumed different forms at different times-slave raiding, warfare, epidemic illness, colonial domination, state interference, economic exploitation, and corrupt government-they are subject to the same mix of magical and practical reactions that affluent Westerners deploy against terrorist threats, illegal immigration, market collapse, and economic recession. Both the problem of well-being and the question of what makes life worthwhile are grounded in the mystery of existential discontent-the question as to why human beings, regardless of their external circumstances, are haunted by a sense of insufficiency and loss. While philosophers have often asked the most searching questions regarding the human condition, Jackson suggests that ethnographic method offers one of the most edifying ways of actually exploring those questions.

Industry Reviews

"Michael Jackson has done it again. This is a beautifully observed essay on human well-being and the ethnographic process. There is an elegant blending of ethnography, travel memoir, and philosophical reflection." Michael Lambek, author of The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanga, Madagascar "Life Within Limits is a book on Sierra Leonean realities, but it is also a work that tries to understand the human condition more generally. At its center is a trip to Sierra Leone, where Michael Jackson revisits the village where he did fieldwork almost forty years ago. Between the conversations in the 1970s and those of today falls a brutal civil war with immense human suffering, but also births and deaths, young people growing old, some dreams realized, others not. In its rare combination of accumulated knowledge and ongoing critical self-reflection, Life Within Limits is anthropological writing at its best."oSverker Finnstrom, author of Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Sociology & Anthropology Anthropology Social & Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography Reference, Information & Interdisciplinary Subjects Interdisciplinary Studies Development Studies Society & Culture Social Issues & Processes Poverty & Unemployment History Regional & National History

African History

Imagining Firawa	p. ix
Fathers and Sons	p. 1
Forty Days	p. 13
Scenes from a Marriage	p. 30
Smoke and Mirrors	p. 46
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World	p. 63
The Reopening of the Gate of Effort	p. 77
Something's Missing	p. 88
The Politics of Storytelling	p. 100
The Road to Kabala	p. 112
Their Eyes Were Watching God	p. 122
Albitaiya	p. 134
The Year of Supernatural Abundance	p. 145
Strings Attached	p. 158
The Shape of the Inconstruable Question	p. 172
Not to Find One's Way in a City	p. 187
Coda	p. 199
Acknowledgments	p. 201
Notes	p. 203
Index	p. 225
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Life Within Limits

Well-being in a World of Want

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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