In this study of aesthetics and change among the Kono of Sierra Leone, Kris L. Hardin addresses the issue of Western bias in aesthetic critique. She proposes an anthropology of aesthetics in which the analysis of value and preference can be made in indigenous terms within any particular setting.Hardin's fascinating ethnography of the Kono reveals how a people's categories of experience and evaluation - their aesthetics - are applied to such varied activities as agricultural production, dancing, and pottery making. In her fieldwork among the Kono, Hardin observed the interplay of individual preference and social value, looking not only for categories of experience but also for cues that signal the categories appreciation or displeasure. The author describes the ways in which traditional structures both influence and are influenced by people's actions and how evaluations of action allow for changes at the level of structure over time.Most aesthetic research begins with the Western notion of art as a category that separates objects and forms from their social context. Maintaining that an anthropology of aesthetics should focus on exploring the conditions under which evaluation occurs and the consequences of that evaluation, rather than specific sets of forms or activities, Hardin moves away from the "art as a reflection of culture" model and locates aesthetics more centrally within social theory. As a result, the author is able to consider the role aesthetic criticism plays in the construction of social and cultural identity, to examine the mechanisms through which aesthetic criticism shapes social and cultural processes, to view the relationship between aesthetic evaluation and change, and to acknowledge the social and political consequences of the question whether aesthetic systems explored in this way can be compared. Read Less