Sherry Ortner is an American anthropologist known for her contributions to practice theory and to feminist anthropology. Her 1974 essay Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? proposed that the near-universal subordination of women could be explained by a widespread symbolic association of women with nature and men with culture, an argument that became a foundational and widely debated text in feminist anthropology. Ortner's later work developed practice theory, drawing on sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu to analyze how social structures both shape and are reshaped by the everyday practices of actors, applied in her own ethnographic research on Sherpa communities in Nepal and on class and culture in the United States.
Facts
Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Nationality / CultureSourced to the subject's own account Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own accountDeveloped practice theory in anthropology, drawing on Bourdieu, Giddens and Sahlins to argue that social continuity and social transformation are both produced through the everyday practices of real actors. 1 Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountIs Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Sherry Ortner - Wikipedia
Wikipedialead sentence, birth date clause
Sherry Beth Ortner (born September 19, 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist.
lead sentence, birth year figure
Sherry Beth Ortner (born September 19, 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist.
lead sentence, nationality descriptor
Sherry Beth Ortner (born September 19, 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist.
Significant contributions section, feminist theory sentence
Her first and most notable article in this area, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” (1972/1974), has been translated into 10 languages and has been reprinted in 25 different collections.
Significant contributions section, practice theory sentence
Ortner is well known for her contributions to social theory. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and Marshall Sahlins, she sought to develop her own version of practice theory, a theory that emphasizes that both social continuity and social transformation are the products of the practices of real people in real times and places.
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