Henrietta L Moore Professor of Social Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science

Acknowledgements viii
1 Body, Mind and World 1
2 A Genealogy of the Anthropological Subject 23
3 Culture, Power and Desire 43
4 Objects and Relations with (M)others 63
5 The Problem of the Phallus 95
6 Being and Having 115
7 Kinship and Sexuality 137
8 Mothers and Men 165
9 Social Transformations 193
Notes 212
References 235
Index 259

In this ambitious new book, Henrietta Moore draws on anthropology,feminism and psychoanalysis to develop an original and provocativetheory of gender and of how we become sexed beings. Arguing thatthe Oedipus complex is no longer the fulcrum of debate betweenanthropology and psychoanalysis, she demonstrates how recenttheorizing on subjectivity, agency and culture has opened up newpossibilities for rethinking the relationship between gender,sexuality and symbolism.
Using detailed ethnographic material from Africa and Melanesiato explore the strengths and weaknesses of a range of theories inanthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis, Moore advocates anethics of engagement based on a detailed understanding of thedifferences and similarities in the ways in which local communitiesand western scholars have imaginatively deployed the power ofsexual difference. She demonstrates the importance of ethnographiclistening, of focused attention to people's imaginations, andof how this illuminates different facets of complex theoreticalissues and human conundrums.
Written not just for professional scholars and for students butfor anyone with a serious interest in how gender and sexuality areconceptualized and experienced, this book is the most powerful andpersuasive assessment to date of what anthropology has tocontribute to these debates now and in the future.