This book outlines an approach to anthropology that focuses on
negotiating the social meanings we and others use in making sense of the
world, and on the processes of identification that create the difference
between same and other. Why trace a line of demarcation between
societies thought to warrant and require anthropological observation and
others (namely, our own) thought to demand a different type of study?
Once anthropology, through its study of rites, takes social meaning as
its principal object, the necessity for a "generalized anthropology"
that includes the entire planet seems obvious, especially in view of the
rapid proliferation of new networks of communication and the integration
of individuals into those networks.