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Heart of Lightness
The Life Story of an Anthropologist
Edith Turner
With a Foreword by Ronnie Frankenberg
320 pages, 46 photos, index
ISBN 978-1-84545-126-4 $135.00/£99.00 / Hb / Published (November 2006)
ISBN 978-1-84545-127-1 $34.95/£27.95 / Pb / Published (October 2006)
eISBN 978-1-80073-406-7 eBook
Reviews
“…a bright and very personal journey into the work and life of Edith Turner…an important text for those interested in humanistic anthropology and the life of a remarkable anthropologist that has contributes to the study of ritual, religion, healing, consciousness and many other subjects. · Social Anthropology
Description
"Edith and Victor Turner were among the most influential researchers and teachers and social and cultural anthropology in the twentieth century. Together they, and Edie alone after Vic's death, raised the idea of participant observation (and indeed of team learning) to heights and depth most anthropologists never achieve." [From the Foreword]
This fascinating memoir is a lively testimony to a remarkable partnership and to Edie Turner's own achievements during more than two decades after Victor's untimely death.
Edith L. B. Turner (1921-2016) was on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. She specialized in ritual, religion, healing, and aspects of consciousness, and had done fieldwork among the Ndembu of Zambia, in Mexico, among the Iñupiat of Alaska, and in rural Ireland. Her numerous publications include The Spirit and the Drum (1987), Experiencing Ritual: A New Interpretation of African Healing (1992), and Among the Healers: Stories of Ritual and Spiritual Healing around the World (2005).