Current emotion research in anthropology: Reporting the field

Abstract

An internal critique of anthropology in recent decades has shifted the focus and scope of anthropological work on emotion. In this article, I review the changes, explore the pros and cons of leading anthropological approaches and theories, and argue that—so far as anthropology is concerned—only detailed narrative accounts can do full justice to the complexity of emotions. A narrative approach captures both the particularity and the temporal dimension of emotion with greater fidelity than semantic, synchronic, and discourse-based approaches.