Difference between revisions of "Anthropology" - New World Encyclopedia

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[[File:Initiation ritual of boys in Malawi.jpg|right|330px|thumb|Initiation rite of the [[Yao]] people of [[Malawi]]]]
'''Anthropology''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''{{polytonic|ἄνθρωπος}}'', "human" or "person") consists of the study of [[humanity]] (see genus ''[[Homo (genus)|Homo]]''). It is [[holism|holistic]] in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times and with all dimensions of humanity. Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from other disciplines by its emphasis on [[Cultural relativism|cultural relativity]], in-depth examination of context, and [[cross-cultural studies|cross-cultural comparisons]]. More recently, it has also distinguished itself as a leader in [[culture critique]] and [[post-colonialism]]. Anthropology is methodologically diverse using both [[qualitative methods]] and [[quantitative methods]]. [[Case studies]] have historically played a key role in anthropology, for instance in producing [[ethnographies]] based on [[field research]].
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'''Anthropology''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''{{polytonic|ἄνθρωπος}}'', "human" or "person") consists of the study of humanity (see genus ''[[Homo]]''). The discipline is a holistic study, concerned with all humans, at all times, in all humanity's dimensions. Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from other disciplines by its emphasis on cultural relativity, in-depth examination of context, and cross-cultural comparisons.  
[[Image:8403452 36f7580a25 o.jpg|right|330px|thumb|[[Initiation rite]] of the [[WaYao|Yao]] people of [[Malawi]]]]
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{{toc}}
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Anthropology is methodologically diverse, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, such as firsthand case studies of living [[culture]]s, careful excavations of material remains, and interpretations of both living and extinct [[linguistics|linguistic]] practices. In [[North America]] and other Western cultures, anthropology is traditionally broken down into four main divisions: [[physical anthropology]], [[archaeology]], [[cultural anthropology]] (also known as social anthropology), and [[linguistic anthropology]]. Each sub-discipline uses different techniques, taking different approaches to study [[human being]]s at all points in time. Through bringing together the results of all these endeavors humans can hope to better understand themselves, and learn to live in harmony, fulfilling their potential as individuals and societies, taking care of each other and the earth that is their home.
  
 
==Historical and institutional context==
 
==Historical and institutional context==
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{{readout|The anthropologist [[Eric Wolf]] once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences."|right}} Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the [[Age of Enlightenment]], a period when Europeans attempted to study human behavior systematically. The traditions of [[jurisprudence]], [[history]], [[philology]], and [[sociology]] then evolved into something more closely resembling the modern views of these disciplines and informed the development of the [[social sciences]], of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the [[romanticism|romantic]] reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers, such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and later [[Wilhelm Dilthey]], whose work formed the basis for the "culture concept," which is central to the discipline.
  
The anthropologist [[Eric Wolf]] once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences." Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebears, and the discipline has several sources; [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], for example, claimed [[Montaigne]] and [[Rousseau]] as important influences. Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the [[Age of Enlightenment]], a period when Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. The traditions of [[jurisprudence]], [[history]], [[philology]], and [[sociology]] then evolved into something more closely resembling the modern views of these disciplines and informed the development of the [[social sciences]], of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the [[romanticism|romantic]] reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers, such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and later [[Wilhelm Dilthey]], whose work formed the basis for the "culture concept," which is central to the discipline.
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[[Image:Table of Natural History, Cyclopaedia, Volume 2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Table of natural history, 1728 ''Cyclopaedia'']] Institutionally, anthropology emerged from the development of [[natural history]] (expounded by authors such as [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]]) that occurred during the European colonization of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Programs of [[ethnography|ethnographic]] study have their origins in this era as the study of the "human primitives" overseen by colonial administrations. There was a tendency in late eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved in accordance with certain principles and that could be observed empirically.<ref>See, for instance, the writing of [[Auguste Comte]].</ref> In some ways, studying the [[language]], [[culture]], [[physiology]], and artifacts of European colonies was not unlike studying the [[flora]] and [[fauna]] of those places.
  
[[Image:Table of Natural History, Cyclopaedia, Volume 2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Table of natural history, 1728 ''[[Cyclopaedia]]'']]Institutionally, anthropology emerged from the development of [[natural history]] (expounded by authors such as [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]]) that occurred during the European colonization of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Programs of ethnographic study have their origins in this era as the study of the "human primitives" overseen by colonial administrations.  There was a tendency in late 18th century Enlightenment thought to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved in accordance with certain principles and that could be observed empirically.<ref>see, for instance, the writing of [[Auguste Comte]]</ref> In some ways, studying the language, culture, physiology, and artifacts of European colonies was not unlike studying the flora and fauna of those places. Some critics point to the fact that the material culture of "[[civilization|civilized]]" nations such as [[China]] have historically been displayed in fine-art museums alongside European art, while artifacts from African and Native North American cultures were displayed in Natural History Museums, alongside dinosaur bones and nature dioramas.{{fact}}  The [[British Museum]] or the Parisian [[Musée de l'Homme]] are examples of such museums&mdash;the Musée de l'Homme held the "[[Hottentot Venus]]" remains until the 1970s. Saartje Baartman, a [[Namaqua]] woman, was examined by anatomist [[Georges Cuvier]]. This being said, curatorial practice has changed dramatically in recent years, and it would be inaccurate to see anthropology as merely an extension of colonial rule and European [[chauvinism]], since its relationship to [[imperialism]] was and is complex.{{fact}} <ref> Museums were not the only site of anthropological studies: with the [[New Imperialism]] period, starting in the 1870s, [[zoo]]s became unattended "laboratories," especially the so-called "ethnological exhibitions" or "Negro villages." Thus, "savages" from the colonies were displayed, often nudes, in cages, in what has been called "[[human zoos]]." For example, in [[1906]], anthropologist [[Madison Grant]] put a Congolese [[pygmy]] named [[Ota Benga]] in a cage in the [[Bronx Zoo]], and labelled him "the missing link" between an orangutan and the "white race" (Grant, a renowned [[eugenicist]], was the author of ''[[The Passing of the Great Race]]'' (1916). Such exhibitions were attempts to illustrate and prove in the same movement the validity of [[scientific racism]], the first formulation of which may be found in [[Arthur de Gobineau]]'s ''[[An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races]]'' (1853-55). In 1931, the [[Colonial Exhibition]] in Paris still displayed [[Kanaks]] from [[New Caledonia]] in the "indigenous village"; it received 24 million visitors in six months, thus demonstrating the popularity of such "human zoos."</ref>
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Drawing on the methods of the natural sciences and developing new techniques involving not only structured [[interview]]s, but unstructured "participant observation," and drawing on the new theory of [[evolution]] through natural selection, the branches of anthropology proposed the scientific study of a new object: humankind, conceived of as a whole. Crucial to this study is the concept of "culture," which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and a propensity for [[social learning]], [[thinking]], and acting (which they saw as a product of [[human evolution]] and something that distinguishes ''[[Homo sapiens]]''&mdash;and perhaps all species of genus ''[[Homo]]''&mdash;from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions, which takes the form of highly variable [[belief]]s and practices. Thus, culture not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture, but absorbs the peculiarly European distinction among [[politics]], [[religion]], [[kinship]], and the [[economics|economy]] as autonomous domains. Anthropology thus transcended the divisions between the natural sciences, [[social sciences]], and [[humanities]] to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and [[symbol]]ic dimensions of humankind in all forms.
  
Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had begun to crystallize into its modern form; by 1935, for example, it was possible for T. K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled "A Hundred Years of Anthropology." Early anthropology was dominated by proponents of [[unilineal evolution|unilinealism]], who argued that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary "living fossils," which could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of prehistoric migrations that were sometimes valuable but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans, such as [[Paul Rivet]], first accurately traced [[polynesia|Polynesian]] migrations across the [[Pacific Ocean]]&mdash;though some of them believed those emigrations had originated in [[Egypt]]. Finally, concepts of [[race]] were developed with a view to better understanding the nature of the biological variation within the Human species, and tools such as [[Anthropometry]] were devised as a means of measuring and categorizing this variation, not just within the genus Homo, but in fossil [[Hominids]] and primates as well. Unfortunately racialistic concepts were abused by a few and gave rise to theories of [[Scientific racism]].
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Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had begun to crystallize into its modern form. By 1935, for example, it was possible for T. K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled ''A Hundred Years of Anthropology.'' Early anthropology was dominated by proponents of unilinealism, who argued that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary "living fossils," which could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of [[prehistory|prehistoric]] migrations that were sometimes valuable, but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans, such as [[Paul Rivet]], first accurately traced [[Polynesia]]n migrations across the [[Pacific Ocean]]&mdash;though some of them believed those emigrations had originated in [[Egypt]]. Finally, concepts of [[race]] were developed with a view to better understand the nature of the biological variation within the human species, and tools such as [[anthropometry]] were devised as a means of measuring and categorizing this variation, not just within the genus ''Homo,'' but in [[fossil]] hominids and [[primate]]s as well. Unfortunately, racialist concepts were abused by a few and gave rise to theories of scientific [[racism]], which died out by the middle of the twentieth century, around the time that race was disqualified as a legitimate scientific category by anthropologists.
  
<!--I'm really not sure where to put this.—>Anténor Firmin wrote De l'égalité des races humaines (1885) as a direct rebuttal to Count Arthur de Gobineau’s polemical four-volume work ''Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines'' (1853–1855), which asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color. Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that "all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal" (pp. 450). Firmin grew up in Haiti, and was admitted to the Societé d’ Anthropologie de Paris in 1884 while serving as a diplomat. His persuasive critique and rigorous analysis of many of that society’s leading scholars made him an early pioneer in the so-called vindicationist struggle in anthropology. Many scholars also associate his work with the very first ideas of Pan-Africanism.
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==Academic Branches==
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Anthropology consists of two major divisions: [[Anthropology#Physical Anthropology|physical anthropology]], which deals with the human physical form from the past to the present, and [[Anthropology#Cultural Anthropology|cultural anthropology]], which studies human [[culture]] in all its aspects. Additionally, the areas of [[Anthropology#Archaeology|archaeology]], which studies the remains of historical societies, and [[Anthropology#Linguistic Anthropology|linguistic anthropology]], which studies variation in [[language]] across time and space and its relationship to culture, are considered sub-disciplines in [[North America]].
  
In the twentieth century, academic disciplines began to organize around three main domains. The domain of the ''[[sciences]]'' seeks to derive natural laws through reproducible and falsifiable experiments; that of the ''[[humanities]]'' reflects an attempt to study different national traditions, in the form of [[history]] and the [[art]]s, as an attempt to provide people in emerging nation-states with a sense of coherence; the ''[[social sciences]]'' emerged at this time as an attempt to develop scientific methods to address social phenomena and provide a universal basis for social knowledge. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.
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===Physical Anthropology===
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{{Main|Physical anthropology}}
  
Drawing on the methods of the [[natural science]]s and developing new techniques involving not only structured interviews, but unstructured ''participant observation,'' and drawing on the new [[theory of evolution]] through [[natural selection]], the branches of anthropology proposed the scientific study of a new object: humankind, conceived of as a whole. Crucial to this study is the concept of ''culture,'' which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and a propensity for social learning, thinking, and acting (which they saw as a product of human evolution and something that distinguishes ''[[Homo sapiens]]''&mdash;and perhaps all species of genus ''[[Hominoid|Homo]]''&mdash;from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions, which takes the form of highly variable beliefs and practices. Thus, culture not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture, but absorbs the peculiarly European distinction among politics, religion, kinship, and the economy as autonomous domains. Anthropology thus transcends the divisions between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic dimensions of humankind in all forms
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[[Image:Line0179.jpg|thumb|right|225px| Skulls from Punuk Island, Bering Sea, Alaska]]
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Physical anthropology is the field that considers the [[biology]] and [[physiology]] of humanity, from [[primate]] ancestors to modern-day humans. Physical anthropology’s origins actually lie in the [[geology]] revolution, when the [[Earth]] was revealed to be much older than the previously accepted biblical scale, and [[fossil]]ized human remains and tools spurred the debate of "man's antiquity." Coupled with [[Charles Darwin]]'s explosive theory of [[evolution]], physical anthropology became the leading authority on the evidence of [[human evolution]].  
  
==Anthropology in the United States==
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By the mid-twentieth century, a general [[geneology|geneological]] tree of human ancestors had been established, based upon fossils discovered by [[Donald C. Johanson]], [[Paul Abell]], and [[Mary Leakey|Mary]], [[Louis Leakey|Louis]], and [[Richard Leakey]] among others. While fossils found in [[Africa]], [[Asia]], and even [[South America]] challenged both the timeline and circumstances surrounding humanity's evolution, the basic paradigm is still accepted: millions of years ago, evolutionary adaptations in small [[mammal]]s, such as [[stereoscopic vision]], led to the development of the early primate line of descendants. Humans, [[gorilla]]s, and [[chimpanzee]]s were the last species to develop their own branches, from which the human line branched off into many different dead-end lines and closely related species, but the most direct line lead from the ''[[Australopithecus|Australopithecine]]'' species, then evolving into the ''[[Homo]]'' lines. ''[[Homo habilis]],'' ''[[Homo rudolfensis]],'' ''[[Homo erectus]],'' and ''[[Homo neanderthalensis]]'' were the first direct ancestors, with increased [[cranium|cranial capacity]]. <ref> Bernard G. Campbell, James D. Loy, and Kathryn Cruz-Uribe, ''Humankind Emerging'' (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2005, ISBN 978-0205423804).</ref> It should be noted that the exact place of human ancestors in the evolutionary scheme is challenged nearly every year, and that new categories are emerging so that a conclusive paradigm has yet to be produced.
===Jacksonian America and polygenism===
 
  
Late eighteenth century ethnology established the scientific foundation for the field, which began to mature when [[Andrew Jackson]] was President of the United States (1829-1837). Jackson was responsible for implementing the [[Indian Removal Act]], the coerced and forced removal of an estimated 100,000 American Indians during the 1830s to Indian Territory in present-day [[Oklahoma]]; for insuring that the franchise was extended to all white men, irrespective of financial means while denying virtually all black men the right to vote; and, for suppressing abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery while vigorously defending that institution. Finally, he was responsible for appointing Chief Justice Roger B. Taney who would decide, in Scott v. Sandford (1857), that Negroes were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race. . . and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” As a result of this decision, black people, whether free or enslaved, could never become citizens of the United States.  
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Since the primary focus of physical anthropology is with human evolution, [[primatology]] is a closely linked sub-field of the discipline. Understanding human’s closest relatives, the [[primate]]s, helps understand the evolutionary process from [[ape]] to man. Primatologists, such as [[Jane Goodall]] and [[Dian Fossey]], have pioneered research observing primates in the wild, noting behavior that would have been common to human ancestors.  
  
It was in this context that the so-called American School of Anthropology thrived as the champion of polygenism or the doctrine of multiple origins&mdash;sparking a debate between those influenced by the Bible who believed in the unity of humanity and those who argued from a scientific standpoint for the plurality of origins and the antiquity of distinct types. Like the monogenists, these theories were not monolithic and often used words like races, species, hybrid, and mongrel interchangeably. A scientific consensus began to emerge during this period “that there exists a Genus Homo, embracing many primordial types of ‘species.’” Charles Caldwell, [[Samuel George Morton]], Samuel A. Cartwright, George Gliddon, Josiah C. Nott, and [[Louis Agassiz]], and even [[South Carolina]] Governor James Henry Hammond were all influential proponents of this school. While some were disinterested scientists, others were passionate advocates who used science to promote slavery in a period of increasing sectional strife. All were complicit in establishing the putative science that justified slavery, informed the [[Dred Scott]] decision, underpinned miscegenation laws, and eventually fueled [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]]. Samuel G. Morton, for example, claimed to be just a scientist but he did not hesitate to provide evidence of Negro inferiority to  [[John C. Calhoun]], the prominent pro-slavery Secretary of State to help him negotiate the annexation of [[Texas]] as a slave state.
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Not all physical anthropologists deal with the far past and hominid variants of the ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' line. Forensic anthropologists are used around the world to identify the remains of [[murder]] and disaster victims. One of the most famous forensic anthropologists, Clyde Snow, made his career identifying the remains of mass murders and [[genocide]]s in war-torn countries. <ref> William A. Haviland, Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride, ''Anthropology: The Human Challenge'' (Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0495810841), 10. </ref>
  
===Types of Mankind, 1854===
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Another emerging sub-discipline is population genetics, which tracks and studies contemporary groups of people and the physical/genetic differences between modern-day people, which similar studies had in the early and mid-twentieth century proved that notions of race were scientifically unsubstantial. One of the major discoveries in the field was how to track [[lineage]] through [[mitochondrial DNA]] and [[Y chromosome]]s, in effect, to tracking the origins of the modern humankind to human’s African genetic ancestors.
  
The high-water mark of polygenitic theories was Josiah Nott and Gliddon’s voluminous eight-hundred page tome entitled ''Types of Mankind'', published in 1854. Reproducing the work of Louis Agassiz and Samuel Morton, the authors spread the virulent and explicitly racist views to a wider, more popular audience. The first printing sold out quickly and by the end of the century it had undergone nine editions. Although many Southerners felt that all the justification for slavery they needed was found in the Bible, others used the new science to defend slavery and the repression of American Indians. Abolitionists, however, felt they had to take this science on on its own terms. And for the first time, African American intellectuals waded into the contentious debate. In the immediate wake of ''Types of Mankind'' and during the pitched political battles that led to Civil War, [[Frederick Douglass]] (1818-1895), the statesman and persuasive abolitionist, directly attacked the leading theorists of the American School of Anthropology. In an 1854 address, entitled “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass argued that "by making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, [slaveowners] excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.... For let it be once granted that the human race are of multitudinous origin, naturally different in their moral, physical, and intellectual capacities... a chance is left for slavery, as a necessary institution.... There is no doubt that Messrs. Nott, Glidden, Morton, Smith and Agassiz were duly consulted by our slavery propagating statesmen" (p. 287).
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Other sub-fields of the discipline include:
  
===Boasian anthropology===<!--This subsection needs to be expanded so that it occupies more space than the two that precede it.—>
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* [[Paleobotany]]
[[Image:FranzBoas.jpg|thumb|right|[[Franz Boas]], one of the pioneers of modern anthropology, often called the "Father of American Anthropology"]]
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* Paleopathology
Cultural anthropology in the United States was influenced greatly by the ready availability of Native American societies as ethnographic subjects.  The field was pioneered by staff of the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] and the Smithsonian Institution's [[Bureau of American Ethnology]], men such as [[John Wesley Powell]] and [[Frank Hamilton Cushing]].  [[Lewis Henry Morgan]] (1818-1881), a lawyer from [[Rochester, New York]], became an advocate for and ethnological scholar of the [[Iroquois]].  His comparative analyses of religion, government, material culture, and especially kinship patterns proved to be influential contributions to the field of anthropology.  Like other scholars of his day (such as [[Edward Tylor]]), Morgan argued that human societies could be classified into categories of cultural evolution on a scale of progression that ranged from ''savagery'', to ''barbarism'', to ''civilization''.  Generally, Morgan used technology (such as bowmaking or pottery) as an indicator of position on this scale.<ref>This would  be influential on the ideas of [[Karl Marx]].</ref>
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* [[Paleozoology]]
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* Medical anthropology
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* Paleoanthropology (also known as human [[paleontology]])
  
[[Franz Boas]] established academic anthropology in the United States in opposition to this sort of evolutionary perspective. Boasian anthropology was politically active and suspicious of research dictated by the U.S. government and wealthy patrons. It was rigorously empirical and skeptical of overgeneralizations and attempts to establish universal laws. Boas studied immigrant children to demonstrate that biological race was not immutable, and that human conduct and behavior resulted from nurture, rather than nature.
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===Cultural Anthropology===
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{{Main|Cultural anthropology}}
  
Influenced by the German tradition, Boas argued that the world was full of distinct ''cultures,'' rather than societies whose evolution could be measured by how much or how little "civilization" they had. He believed that each culture has to be studied in its particularity, and argued that cross-cultural generalizations, like those made in the [[natural science]]s, were not possible. In doing so, he fought discrimination against immigrants, African Americans, and Native North Americans. Many American anthropologists adopted his agenda for social reform, and theories of race continue to be popular targets for anthropologists today.
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The primary focus of cultural anthropology, also referred to as social anthropology and ethnology, is the study of human [[culture]]. In regards to humanity, culture can deal with a host of subjects, such as [[religion]], [[mythology]], [[art]], [[music]], [[government]] systems, [[social structure]]s and hierarchies, [[family]] dynamics, [[tradition]]s, and [[custom]]s as well as cuisine, economy, and relationship to the environment. Any and all of these factors make up important aspects of culture and behavior, and are some of the pieces of human history that cultural anthropology tries to put to together into a larger, more comprehensive picture of the human experience.
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[[Image:Mvey0295.jpg|thumb|left|225px| ]]
  
Boas used his positions at [[Columbia University]] and the [[American Museum of Natural History]] to train and develop multiple generations of students. His first generation of students included [[Alfred Kroeber]], [[Robert Lowie]], [[Edward Sapir]] and [[Ruth Benedict]], all of whom produced richly detailed studies of indigenous North American cultures. They provided a wealth of details used to attack the theory of a single evolutionary process. Kroeber and Sapir's focus on Native American languages helped establish [[linguistics]] as a truly general science and free it from its historical focus on [[Indo-European languages]].
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With the rise of [[history]] and [[humanities]] studies, along with the natural sciences, during the nineteenth century, such scholars as [[Edward Burnett Tylor]] and [[James Frazer]] began to plant the seeds of cultural anthropology, wondering why people living in different parts of the world sometimes had similar [[belief]]s and practices. This question became the underlying concern of cultural anthropology. Grafton Elliot Smith argued that different groups must somehow have learned from one another, as if cultural traits were being spread from one place to another, or “diffused.” Others argued that different groups had the capability of inventing similar beliefs and practices independently. Some of those who advocated "independent invention," like Lewis Henry Morgan, additionally supposed that similarities meant that different groups had passed through the same stages of cultural evolution.
  
<!--This paragraph is a jumble of statements with no particular focus.—>The publication of [[Alfred Kroeber]]'s textbook, ''Anthropology,'' marked a turning point in American anthropology. After three decades of amassing material, Boasians felt a growing urge to generalize. This was most obvious in the 'Culture and Personality' studies carried out by younger Boasians such as [[Margaret Mead]] and [[Ruth Benedict]]. Influenced by psychoanalytic psychologists such as [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Carl Jung]], these authors sought to understand the way that individual personalities were shaped by the wider cultural and social forces in which they grew up. Though such works as ''Coming of Age in Samoa'' and ''The Chrysanthemum and the Sword'' remain popular with the American public, Mead and Benedict never had the impact on the discipline of anthropology that some expected. Boas had planned for Ruth Benedict to succeed him as chair of Columbia's anthropology department, but she was sidelined by [[Ralph Linton]], and Mead was limited to her offices at the [[American Museum of Natural History|AMNH]].
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[[Ethnography]], the backbone of cultural anthropology methodology, was developed by [[Bronislaw Malinowski]] in his work in the Trobriand Islands of [[Melanesia]] between 1915 and 1918. Although nineteenth-century ethnologists saw "diffusion" and "independent invention" as mutually exclusive and competing theories, most ethnographers quickly reached a consensus that both processes occur, and that both can plausibly account for cross-cultural similarities.
  
==Anthropology in Britain==
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In the 1950s and mid-1960s, anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the [[natural science]]s. Some anthropologists, such as Lloyd Fallers and [[Clifford Geertz]], focused on processes of modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as [[Julian Steward]] and [[Leslie White]], focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche&mdash;an approach popularized by [[Marvin Harris]]. Economic anthropology through the influence of [[Karl Polanyi]] focused on how traditional [[economics]] ignored cultural and social factors. In [[England]], British social anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as [[Max Gluckman]] and Peter Worsley experimented with [[Marxism]] and others incorporated [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]]'s [[structuralism]] into their work.
Whereas Boas picked his opponents to pieces through attention to detail, modern anthropology in Britain was formed by rejecting historical reconstruction in the name of a science of society that focused on analyzing how societies held together in the present.
 
  
The two most important scholars in this tradition were [[Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown]] and [[Bronislaw Malinowski]], both of whom released seminal works in 1922. Radcliffe-Brown's initial fieldwork, in the [[Andaman Islands]], was carried out in the old style of historical reconstruction.  After reading the work of French sociologists [[Émile Durkheim]] and [[Marcel Mauss]], Radcliffe-Brown published an account of his research (entitled simply ''The Andaman Islanders'') that paid close attention to the meaning and purpose of rituals and myths. Over time, he developed an approach known as [[structural functionalism|structural-functionalism]], which focused on how institutions in societies worked to balance out or create an equilibrium in the social system to keep it functioning harmoniously. [[Bronislaw Malinowski|Malinowski]], in contrast, advocated an unhyphenated [[Functionalism (sociology)|functionalism]], which examined how society functioned to meet individual needs. He is better known, however, for his detailed [[ethnography]] and advances in methodology. His classic ethnography, ''Argonauts of the Western Pacific,'' advocated getting "the native's point of view" and an approach to fieldwork that became standard in the field.
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Structuralism also influenced a number of developments in the 1960s and 1970s, including cognitive anthropology and componential analysis. Authors such as David Schneider, [[Clifford Geertz]], and Marshall Sahlins developed a more fleshed-out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification, which proved very popular within and beyond the discipline. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through the [[Algerian War of Independence]] and opposition to the [[Vietnam War]]. By the 1970s, the authors of volumes such as ''Reinventing Anthropology'' worried about anthropology's relevance.
  
Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's influence stemmed from the fact that they, like Boas, actively trained students and aggressively built up institutions that furthered their programmatic ambitions. This was particularly the case with Radcliffe-Brown, who spread his agenda for "Social Anthropology" by teaching at universities across the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]. From the late 1930s until the postwar period appeared a string of monographs and edited volumes that cemented the paradigm of British Social Anthropology. Famous ethnographies include ''The Nuer,'' by [[Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard]], and ''The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi,'' by [[Meyer Fortes]]; well-known edited volumes include ''African Systems of Kinship and Marriage'' and ''African Political Systems.'' Contemporary [[social anthropology]] is international and has branched in many directions.
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In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in [[Eric Wolf]]'s ''Europe and the People without History,'' were central to the discipline. Books like ''Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter'' pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of theorists such as [[Michel Foucault]] moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. [[Gender]] and [[human sexuality]] became popular topics, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, and the relationship between [[social structure]] and individual agency.
  
==Anthropology in France==
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In the late 1980s and 1990s, authors such as [[George Marcus]] and [[James Clifford]] pondered ethnographic authority, particularly how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. Ethnographies became more reflexive, explicitly addressing the author's methodology and cultural positioning, and their influence on his or her ethnographic analysis. This was part of a more general trend of [[postmodernism]] that was popular contemporaneously. Currently, anthropologists have begun to pay attention to [[globalization]], [[medicine]] and [[biotechnology]], indigenous rights, and the anthropology of industrialized societies.
  
Anthropology in France has a less clear genealogy than the British and American traditions. Most commentators consider [[Marcel Mauss]] to be the founder of the French anthropological tradition. Mauss was a member of [[Émile Durkheim|Durkheim's]] [[Année Sociologique]] group, and while Durkheim and others examined the state of modern societies, Mauss and his collaborators (such as [[Henri Hubert]] and [[Robert Hertz]]) drew on ethnography and philology to analyze societies which were not as 'differentiated' as European nation states. In particular, Mauss's ''[[The Gift (book)|Essay on the Gift]]'' was to prove of enduring relevance in anthropological studies of [[trade|exchange]] and [[reciprocity (cultural anthropology)|reciprocity]].
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Sub-fields include:
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* [[Anthropology of art]]
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* [[Anthropology of religion]]
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* [[Applied anthropology]]
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* [[Cross-cultural studies]]
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* [[Cyber anthropology]]
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* [[Economic anthropology]]
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* [[Ecological anthropology]]
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* [[Ethnobotany]]
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* [[Ethnography]]
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* [[Ethnomusicology]]
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* [[Ethnozoology]]
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* [[Psychological anthropology]] (also known as culture-and-personality studies)
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* [[Political anthropology]]
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* [[Urban anthropology]]
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* [[Visual anthropology]]
  
Throughout the interwar years, French interest in anthropology often dovetailed with wider cultural movements such as [[surrealism]] and [[primitivism (art movement)|primitivism]] which drew on ethnography for inspiration. [[Marcel Griaule]] and [[Michel Leiris]] are examples of people who combined anthropology with the French avant-garde. During this time most of what is known as ''ethnologie'' was restricted to museums, such as the [[Musée de l'Homme]] founded by [[Paul Rivet]], and anthropology had a close relationship with studies of [[folklore]].
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===Archaeology===
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{{Main|Archaeology}}
  
Above all, however, it was [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] who helped institutionalize anthropology in France. In addition to the enormous influence his [[structuralism]] exerted across multiple disciplines, Lévi-Strauss established ties with American and British anthropologists. At the same time he established centers and laboratories within France to provide an institutional context within anthropology while training influential students such as [[Maurice Godelier]] and [[Françoise Héritier]] who would prove influential in the world of French anthropology. Much of the distinct character of France's anthropology today is a result of the fact that most anthropology is carried out in nationally funded research laboratories ([[CNRS]]) rather than academic departments in universities.
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[[Image:Monte Albán archeological site, Oaxaca.jpg|thumb|300px|Monte Albán archeological site]]
  
Other influential writers in the 1970s include [[Pierre Clastres]], who explains in his books on the [[Guayaki]] tribe in [[Paraguay]] that "primitive societies" actively oppose the institution of the [[state]]. Therefore, these stateless societies are not less evolved than societies with states, but took the active choice of conjuring the institution of [[authority]] as a separate function from society. The [[Leadership|leader]] is only a spokeperson for the group when it has to deal with other groups ("international relations") but has no inside authority, and may be violently removed if he attempts to abuse this position.
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Archaeology studies human [[culture]]s through the recovery, documentation, and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including [[architecture]], artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. While there are numerous goals pertaining to its various sub-disciplines, the main goal of archaeology is to create the most thorough understanding of how and why both historical and prehistoric people lived, to understand the evolution of human society and [[civilization]]s, and to use knowledge of human ancestors’ history to discover insights into modern-day societies. Through such efforts, it is hoped that archaeology will support increased understanding among the various peoples of the world, and thus aid in the growth of peace and harmony among all humankind.
  
==Anthropology after World War II==
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Archaeology as a serious academic discipline did not emerge until the end of the nineteenth century, the byproduct of a number of scientific discoveries and new theories. The discovery that the [[Earth]] was older than previously understood, and therefore that humankind had been around longer than the established timeframe of the [[Bible]], spurred scientific curiosity in exploring human origins. Similarly, [[Charles Darwin]]’s ''On the Origin of the Species'' (1859) introduced the theory of [[evolution]], inciting a furor of academic debate and research. Even more important for archaeology was [[Christian Jürgensen Thomsen|C. J. Thomsen’s]] establishment of the "Three Age System," in which man’s history was categorized into three eras based on [[technology|technological]] advancement: the [[Stone Age]], [[Bronze Age]], and [[Iron Age]]. The chronological history of humankind became an exciting academic field. Soon, teams of archaeologists were working around the world, discovering long-lost ruins and cities. <ref> Paul Bahn and Colin Renfrew, ''Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice'' (New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008, ISBN 978-0500287132), 25–34. </ref>
Before [[World War II|WWII]] British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. It was after the war that the two would blend to create a 'sociocultural' anthropology.
 
  
In the 1950s and mid-1960s anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the [[natural science]]s. Some anthropologists, such as [[Lloyd Fallers]] and [[Clifford Geertz]], focused on processes of modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as [[Julian Steward]] and [[Leslie White]], focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche —— an approach popularized by [[Marvin Harris]]. [[Economic anthropology]] as influenced by [[Karl Polanyi]] and practiced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] and [[George Dalton]] focused on how traditional [[economics]] ignored cultural and social factors. In England, British Social Anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as [[Max Gluckman]] and [[Peter Worsley]] experimented with Marxism and authors such as [[Rodney Needham]] and [[Edmund Leach]] incorporated Lévi-Strauss's structuralism into their work.
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Archaeology took form in the 1960s, when a number of academics, most notably Lewis Binford, proposed a "new archaeology," which would be more "scientific" and "anthropological." It began using [[hypothesis]] testing and [[scientific method]]s, such as the newly established [[dating]] tests, as well as focusing upon the social aspects of the findings. Archaeology became less focused on categorizing, and more on understanding how the evolution of civilization came about, later being dubbed “processual archaeology.
  
Structuralism also influenced a number of developments in 1960s and 1970s, including [[cognitive anthropology]] and componential analysis. Authors such as [[David Schneider (anthropologist)|David Schneider]], [[Clifford Geertz]], and [[Marshall Sahlins]] developed a more fleshed-out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification, which proved very popular within and beyond the discipline. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through the [[Algerian War of Independence]] and opposition to the [[Vietnam War]]; [[Marxism]] became a more and more popular theoretical approach in the discipline. By the 1970s the authors of volumes such as ''Reinventing Anthropology'' worried about anthropology's relevance.
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In the 1980s, a new movement arose, led by the British archaeologists Michael Shanks, Christopher Tilley, Daniel Miller, and Ian Hodder, questioning processualism's appeals to science and impartiality, and emphasizing the importance of relativism, becoming known as post-processual archaeology. Further adaptation and innovation in archaeology has continued.
  
In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in [[Eric Wolf]]'s ''Europe and the People Without History'', were central to the discipline. Books like ''Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter'' pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of theorists such as [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Michel Foucault]] moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. Gender and sexuality became a popular topic, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, influenced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] (again), who drew on [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]] and [[Fernand Braudel]] to examine the relationship between social structure and individual agency.
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Contemporary sub-fields of archaeology include:
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* Ariel Archaeology
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* Archaeoastronomy
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* Archaeological Science
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* Archaeobotany
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* Archaeozoology
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* Computational Archaeology
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* Ethnoarchaeology
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* Experimental Archaeology
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* Landscape Archaeology
 +
* Maritime Archaeology
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* Museum Studies
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* Paleopathology
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* Taphonomy
  
In the late 1980s and 1990s authors such as [[George Marcus]] and [[James Clifford]] pondered ethnographic authority, particularly how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. Ethnographies became more reflexive, explicitly addressing the author's methodology and cultural positioning, and their influence on his or her ethnographic analysis. This was part of a more general trend of [[postmodernism]] that was popular contemporaneously. Currently anthropologists have begun to pay attention to [[globalization]], [[medicine]] and [[biotechnology]], [[indigenous rights]], and the anthropology of industrialized societies.
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===Linguistic Anthropology===
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{{Main|Linguistic anthropology}}
  
==Politics of anthropology==
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Linguistic anthropology is rooted largely in general [[linguistics|linguistic]] studies which deals with the components of [[language]], mainly [[phonetics]], [[morphology]], and even the [[kinesics]] of language. Linguistic anthropology grew out of [[cultural anthropology]], when anthropologists realized what information the study of language can bring.
  
American cultural anthropology developed during the first four decades of the 20th century under the powerful influence of Franz Boas and his students and their struggle against racial determinism and the ethnocentrism of 19th century cultural evolutionism. With the additional impact of the Great Depression and World War II, American anthropology developed a pronounced liberal-left tone by the 1950s. However, the discipline's deep involvement with nonwestern cultures put it in a vulnerable position during the campus upheavals of the late 1960s and in the subsequent "culture wars." The "politics of anthropology" has become a pervasive concern since then. Whatever the realities, the notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects has become a significant topic both within the discipline and in "cultural studies" and "post-colonialism," etc. A few of the central elements in this discourse are the following:
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The first main branch of the discipline is [[historical linguistics]], which studies the evolution of language. All languages have a genealogical tree structure that shows their evolution. For instance, modern [[English language|English]] comes from a combination of [[French language|French]], [[Latin language|Latin]], and [[German language|Germanic]] sources, which can all traces their roots back to a common origin, the [[Indo-European language]] from the [[steppe]]s of [[Russia]]. The ability of anthropological linguists to trace a language's origins based on the morphological and phonetic changes also can be used to track [[human migration]] patterns. Lexicostatistical dating is the technique used for migration tracing, and one of the most famous examples is the pattern of [[Native American]] settlement thousands of years ago on such a linguistic approach.
  
*The claim that the discipline grew out of colonialism, perhaps was in league with it, and derived some of its key notions from it, consciously or not.   (See, for example, Gough, Pels and Salemink, but cf. Lewis 2004). It is often assumed that an example of this exploitative relationship can be seen in the relationship between of British anthropologists and colonial forces in Africa, yet this assumption has not been supported by much evidence. (See Asad et al; cf. Desai.)
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The second major linguistic study in anthropology is called [[ethnolinguistics]]. There are two historically different approaches in the discipline, the first being the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," proposed in the mid-twentieth century by [[Edward Sapir]] and [[Benjamin Whorf]]. They argued that "Each language provides particular grooves of linguistic expression that predispose speakers of that language to perceive the world in a certain way. ... The picture of the universe shifts from tongue to tongue."<ref> Haviland et. al., 381. </ref> The other approach generally accepts that [[culture]] and language predispose people to particular perspectives, but regards language as a continually evolving phenomena that is constantly consuming different influences and changing the society's perspective. Both perspectives agree that language, as one of humankind's most distinguishing features, is a valuable source of information about culture and [[psychology]], capable of revealing the abstract and cognitive aspects of our minds.
  
*The idea that social and political problems must arise because anthropologists usually have more power than the people they study; it is a form of colonialist theft in which the anthropologist gains power at the expense of subjects (Rabinow, Dwyer, McGrane). Anthropologists, they argue, can gain yet more power by exploiting knowledge and artifacts of the people they study while the people they study gain nothing, or even lose, in the exchange (for example, Deloria). Little critical writing has been published in response to these wide-ranging claims, themselves the product of the political concerns and atmosphere of their own times. (See Trencher for a critique.)
+
==Politics of anthropology==
 
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Anthropology, as the study of humankind in all its dimensions, has necessarily been involved in social issues. Anténor Firmin wrote ''De l'égalité des races humaines'' (1885) as a direct rebuttal to [[Count de Gobineau]]’s polemical four-volume work ''Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines'' (1853–1855), which asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color. Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that "all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal" (450). Firmin grew up in [[Haiti]], and was admitted to the Societé d’ Anthropologie de Paris in 1884, while serving as a diplomat. His persuasive critique and rigorous analysis of many of that society’s leading scholars made him an early pioneer in the so-called vindicationist struggle in anthropology. Many scholars also associate his work with the very first ideas of Pan-Africanism.
*It is claimed the discipline was ahistorical, and dealt with its "objects" (sic) "out of time," to their detriment (Fabian). It is often claimed that anthropologists regularly "exoticized 'the Other,'" or, with equal assurance, that they inappropriately universalized "Others" and "human nature." (For references and a response see Lewis 1998.)
 
 
 
*Other more explicitly political concerns have to do with anthropologists’ entanglements with government intelligence agencies, on the one hand, and anti-war politics on the other. Franz Boas publicly objected to US participation in [[World War I]], and after the war he published a brief expose and condemnation of the participation of several American archeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists. But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the "Axis" (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces but others worked in intelligence (for example, Office of Strategic Services [OSS} and the Office of War Information). David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists for their vocal left-wing sympathies. On the other hand, attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little. (Anthropologists did not participate in the stillborn Project Camelot, for example. See Lewis 2005) On the contrary, many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement and a great many resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the [[American Anthropological Association]] (AAA). In the decades since the Vietnam war the tone of cultural and social anthropology, at least, has been increasingly politicized, with the dominant liberal tone of earlier generations replaced with one more radical, a mix of, and varying degrees of, Marxist, feminist, post-colonial, post-modern, Saidian, Foucaultian, identity-based, and more.
 
*Internationally known professor of evolutionary psychology, Kevin B. MacDonald criticized Boasian anthropology as part of a "Jewish strategy to facilitate mass immigration and to weaken the West" (The Culture of Critique, 2002).
 
 
 
Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the [[state]]. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The British Association for Social Anthropology has called certain scholarships ethically dangerous. The AAA's current 'Statement of Professional Responsibility' clearly states that "in relation with their own government and with host governments... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given."
 
 
 
More recently, there have been concerns expressed about bioprospecting, along with struggles for self-representation for native peoples and the repatriation of indigenous remains and material culture, with anthropologists often in the lead on these issues.
 
 
 
Other political controversies come from the emphasis in American anthropology on cultural relativism and its long-standing antipathy to the concept of race. The development of [[sociobiology]] in the late 1960s was opposed by cultural anthropologists such as [[Marshall Sahlins]], who argued that these positions were reductive. While authors such John Randal Baker continued to develop the biological concept of race into the 1970s, the rise of genetics has proven to be central to developments on this front. As genetics continues to advance as a science some anthropologists such as Luca [[Cavalli-Sforza]] have continued to transform and advance notions of race through the use of recent developments in [[genetics]], such as tracing past migrations of peoples through their [[mitochondrial]] and Y-chromosomal [[DNA]], and [[ancestry-informative marker]]s.
 
 
 
==Branches of anthropology==
 
In [[North America]], "anthropology" is traditionally divided into four sub-disciplines:
 
* '''[[Physical anthropology]]''', or [[biological anthropology]], which studies [[primatology|primate behavior]], [[human evolution]], [[osteology]], [[forensics]], and [[population genetics]];
 
* '''[[Cultural anthropology]]''' (called [[social anthropology]] in the [[United Kingdom]] and now often known as [[socio-cultural anthropology]]), which studies social networks, [[diffusion (anthropology)|diffusion]], social behavior, [[kinship]] patterns, law, politics, [[ideology]], religion, beliefs, patterns in production and consumption, exchange, socialization, gender, and other expressions of culture, with strong emphasis on the importance of [[fieldwork]] or participant observation (that is,  living among the social group being studied for an extended period of time);
 
* '''[[Linguistic anthropology]]''', which studies variation in [[language]] across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture, and
 
* '''[[Archaeology]]''', which studies the material remains of human [[society|societies]]. Archaeology itself is normally treated as a separate (but related) field in the rest of the world, although closely related to the anthropological field of [[material culture]], which deals with physical objects created or used within a living or past group as a means of understanding its cultural values.
 
 
 
More recently, some anthropology programs began dividing the field into two, one emphasizing the [[humanities]] and [[critical theory]], the other emphasizing the [[natural science]]s and [[empiricism|empirical observation]].
 
 
 
==Anthropological fields and subfields==
 
* [[Biological anthropology]] (also [[physical anthropology]])
 
** [[Forensic anthropology]]
 
** [[Paleoethnobotany]]
 
** [[Paleopathology]]
 
** [[Medical anthropology]]
 
** [[Primatology]]
 
** [[Paleoanthropology]]
 
** [[Osteology]]
 
* [[Cultural anthropology]] (also [[social anthropology]])
 
** [[Anthropology of art]]
 
** [[Anthropology of religion]]
 
** [[Applied anthropology]]
 
** [[Cross-cultural studies]]
 
** [[Cyber anthropology]]
 
** [[Development anthropology]]
 
** [[Dual inheritance theory]]
 
** [[Environmental anthropology]]
 
** [[Economic anthropology]]
 
** [[Ecological anthropology]]
 
** [[Ethnography]]
 
** [[Ethnomusicology]]
 
** [[Feminist anthropology]]
 
** [[Gender]]
 
** [[Human behavioral ecology]]
 
** [[Medical anthropology]]
 
** [[Psychological anthropology]]
 
** [[Political anthropology]]
 
** [[Public anthropology]]
 
** [[Anthropology of religion]]
 
** [[Symbolic anthropology]]
 
** [[Urban anthropology]]
 
** [[Visual anthropology]]
 
* [[Anthropological linguistics|Linguistic anthropology]]
 
** [[Descriptive linguistics|Synchronic linguistics]] (or descriptive linguistics)
 
** [[Diachronic linguistics]] (or [[historical linguistics]])
 
** [[Ethnolinguistics]]
 
** [[Sociolinguistics]]
 
* [[Archaeology]]
 
** [[Zooarchaeology]]
 
  
 +
[[United States|American]] [[cultural anthropology]] developed during the first four decades of the twentieth century under the powerful influence of [[Franz Boas]] and his students, and their struggle against racial determinism and the [[ethnocentrism]] of nineteenth-century cultural evolutionism. With the additional impact of the [[Great Depression]] and [[World War II]], American anthropology developed a pronounced liberal-left tone by the 1950s. The "politics of anthropology" has become a pervasive concern since that time. Whatever the realities, the notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects has become a significant topic for debate.
  
 +
Explicitly political concerns have to do with anthropologists’ entanglements with government intelligence agencies, on the one hand, and anti-war politics on the other. Franz Boas publicly objected to U.S. participation in [[World War I]], and after the war he published a brief exposé and condemnation of the participation of several American archaeologists in [[espionage]] in [[Mexico]] under their cover as scientists. But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the [[Axis Powers|"Axis"]] ([[Nazism|Nazi]] [[Germany]], [[Fascism|Fascist]] [[Italy]], and Imperial [[Japan]]). Many served in the armed forces, but others worked in intelligence (for example, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of War Information). David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the [[Cold War]] provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists for their vocal left-wing sympathies. Many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement during the [[Vietnam War]] years, and a great many resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. In the decades since the Vietnam war, the tone of cultural and social anthropology, at least, has been increasingly politicized, reflecting [[Marxism|Marxist]], [[feminism|feminist]], [[post-colonialism|post-colonial]], [[postmodernism|postmodern]], and [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]]ian perspectives.
  
==Footnotes==
+
==Notes==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
* Asad, Talal (ed.) 1973. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.
+
* Asad, Talal. ''Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.'' Ithaca, NY: Ithaca Press, 1973. ISBN 0903729016
* Darnell, Regna. 2001. Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology.  
+
* Bahn, Paul, and Colin Renfrew, ''Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice''. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008. ISBN 978-0500287132
* Desai, Gaurav. 2001. Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library.
+
* Campbell, Bernard G., James D. Loy, and Kathryn Cruz-Uribe. ''Humankind Emerging''. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2005. ISBN 978-0205423804
* Lewis, Herbert S. 1998. "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences." American Anthropologist, v, 100.
+
* Darnell, Regna. ''Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology.'' Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. ISBN 0803266294
* Lewis, Herbert S. 2004. "Imagining Anthropology's History." Reviews in Anthropology, v. 33.
+
* Desai, Gaurav. ''Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library.'' Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. ISBN 0822326353
* Lewis, Herbert S. 2005. "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History. In R. Darnell & F.W. Gleach (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I.
+
* Haviland, William A., Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride, ''Anthropology: The Human Challenge''. Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010. ISBN 978-0495810841
* Pels, Peter & Oscar Salemink, eds. 2000. Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology.
+
* Lewis, Herbert S. "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences." ''American Anthropologist'' 100 (1998).
* Price, David. 2004. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.
+
* Lewis, Herbert S. "Imagining Anthropology's History." ''Reviews in Anthropology'' 33 (2004).
* Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco.  
+
* Lewis, Herbert S. "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History.In ''Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I'', edited by Regna Darnell and Frederick W. Gleach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0803266575
* Trencher, Susan. 2000. Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960-1980.
+
* Pels, Peter, and Oscar Salemink. ''Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology.'' Ann Arbor: MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000. ISBN 0472087460
 +
* Price, David. ''Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.'' Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. ISBN 0822333260
 +
* Rabinow, Paul. ''Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco.'' Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977. ISBN 0520035291
 +
* Trencher, Susan. ''Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960–1980.'' Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2000. ISBN 0897896734
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
===Blogs and web portals===
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All links retrieved October 4, 2012.
* [http://www.anthropology.net Anthropology.net] - A community orientated anthropology web portal with user run blogs, forums, tags, and a wiki.
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* [http://www.aaanet.org/ The American Anthropological Association Homepage] - The webpage of the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world.
* [http://www.cybercultura.it Cybercultura] - Collection of web resources about anthropology of cyberspace (in Italian)
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* [http://www.physanth.org/ American Association of Physical Anthropologists]
* [http://www.savageminds.org/ Savage Minds]—group blog
+
* [http://www.anthropology.net Anthropology.net] - A community-orientated anthropology web portal with user run blogs, forums, tags, and a wiki.
* [http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology Social and Cultural Anthropology in the News] - (nearly) daily updated blog
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* [http://anthro.amnh.org/anthro.html Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History] – Over 160,000 objects from Pacific, North American, African, and Asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed descriptions, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs available online.
* [http://vlib.anthrotech.com/ Virtual Library for Anthropology] - indexed directory of Anthropology related links
+
* [http://hpsfaa.wildapricot.org/ High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology]
  
===Organizations===
 
* [http://www.aaanet.org/ The American Anthropological Association Homepage] - the webpage of the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world.
 
* [http://www.physanth.org/ American Association of Physical Anthropologists]
 
* [http://sscl.berkeley.edu/~afaweb/reviews/index.html Association for Feminist Anthropology]
 
* [http://www.movinganthropology.org The Moving Anthropology Student Network/Moving Anthropology Social Network (MASN)] is the largest international network of anthropology students and young academics
 
* [http://www.therai.org.uk/ The Royal Anthropological Institute Homepage] - The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology. They also have a large ethnographic film and video collection.
 
* [http://www.hpsfaa.org/ High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology]
 
* [http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/ National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution] - collects and preserves historical and contemporary anthropological materials that document the world's cultures and the history of anthropology.
 
 
* [http://www.practicinganthropology.org/ National Association for the Practice of Anthropology]
 
* [http://www.practicinganthropology.org/ National Association for the Practice of Anthropology]
* [http://anthro.amnh.org/anthro.html Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History] - Over 160,000 objects from Pacific, North American, African, Asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed description, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs are available online.
+
* [http://www.therai.org.uk/ The Royal Anthropological Institute Homepage] – The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology. They also have a large ethnographic film and video collection.
 
+
* [http://www.savageminds.org/ Savage Minds] – Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog
===Texts and tutorials===
+
* [http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology Social and Cultural Anthropology in the News] – Daily-updated blog
* [http://www.anthrobase.com Anthrobase.com] - Collection of anthropological texts
+
* [http://www.bestonlinecollege.org/anthropology/ Best Online Resources for Anthropology Students]  
* [http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/ Palomar College Anthropology Tutorials] - Tutorials on anthropological topics such as economic systems, kinship, subsistence, religion, and evolution
 
  
  
 
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Revision as of 14:23, 4 April 2016


Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi

Anthropology (from the Greek word ἄνθρωπος, "human" or "person") consists of the study of humanity (see genus Homo). The discipline is a holistic study, concerned with all humans, at all times, in all humanity's dimensions. Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from other disciplines by its emphasis on cultural relativity, in-depth examination of context, and cross-cultural comparisons.

Anthropology is methodologically diverse, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, such as firsthand case studies of living cultures, careful excavations of material remains, and interpretations of both living and extinct linguistic practices. In North America and other Western cultures, anthropology is traditionally broken down into four main divisions: physical anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology (also known as social anthropology), and linguistic anthropology. Each sub-discipline uses different techniques, taking different approaches to study human beings at all points in time. Through bringing together the results of all these endeavors humans can hope to better understand themselves, and learn to live in harmony, fulfilling their potential as individuals and societies, taking care of each other and the earth that is their home.

Historical and institutional context

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The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences."

The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences." Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment, a period when Europeans attempted to study human behavior systematically. The traditions of jurisprudence, history, philology, and sociology then evolved into something more closely resembling the modern views of these disciplines and informed the development of the social sciences, of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and later Wilhelm Dilthey, whose work formed the basis for the "culture concept," which is central to the discipline.

Table of natural history, 1728 Cyclopaedia

Institutionally, anthropology emerged from the development of natural history (expounded by authors such as Buffon) that occurred during the European colonization of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Programs of ethnographic study have their origins in this era as the study of the "human primitives" overseen by colonial administrations. There was a tendency in late eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved in accordance with certain principles and that could be observed empirically.[1] In some ways, studying the language, culture, physiology, and artifacts of European colonies was not unlike studying the flora and fauna of those places.

Drawing on the methods of the natural sciences and developing new techniques involving not only structured interviews, but unstructured "participant observation," and drawing on the new theory of evolution through natural selection, the branches of anthropology proposed the scientific study of a new object: humankind, conceived of as a whole. Crucial to this study is the concept of "culture," which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and a propensity for social learning, thinking, and acting (which they saw as a product of human evolution and something that distinguishes Homo sapiens—and perhaps all species of genus Homo—from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions, which takes the form of highly variable beliefs and practices. Thus, culture not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture, but absorbs the peculiarly European distinction among politics, religion, kinship, and the economy as autonomous domains. Anthropology thus transcended the divisions between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic dimensions of humankind in all forms.

Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had begun to crystallize into its modern form. By 1935, for example, it was possible for T. K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled A Hundred Years of Anthropology. Early anthropology was dominated by proponents of unilinealism, who argued that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary "living fossils," which could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of prehistoric migrations that were sometimes valuable, but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans, such as Paul Rivet, first accurately traced Polynesian migrations across the Pacific Ocean—though some of them believed those emigrations had originated in Egypt. Finally, concepts of race were developed with a view to better understand the nature of the biological variation within the human species, and tools such as anthropometry were devised as a means of measuring and categorizing this variation, not just within the genus Homo, but in fossil hominids and primates as well. Unfortunately, racialist concepts were abused by a few and gave rise to theories of scientific racism, which died out by the middle of the twentieth century, around the time that race was disqualified as a legitimate scientific category by anthropologists.

Academic Branches

Anthropology consists of two major divisions: physical anthropology, which deals with the human physical form from the past to the present, and cultural anthropology, which studies human culture in all its aspects. Additionally, the areas of archaeology, which studies the remains of historical societies, and linguistic anthropology, which studies variation in language across time and space and its relationship to culture, are considered sub-disciplines in North America.

Physical Anthropology

Skulls from Punuk Island, Bering Sea, Alaska

Physical anthropology is the field that considers the biology and physiology of humanity, from primate ancestors to modern-day humans. Physical anthropology’s origins actually lie in the geology revolution, when the Earth was revealed to be much older than the previously accepted biblical scale, and fossilized human remains and tools spurred the debate of "man's antiquity." Coupled with Charles Darwin's explosive theory of evolution, physical anthropology became the leading authority on the evidence of human evolution.

By the mid-twentieth century, a general geneological tree of human ancestors had been established, based upon fossils discovered by Donald C. Johanson, Paul Abell, and Mary, Louis, and Richard Leakey among others. While fossils found in Africa, Asia, and even South America challenged both the timeline and circumstances surrounding humanity's evolution, the basic paradigm is still accepted: millions of years ago, evolutionary adaptations in small mammals, such as stereoscopic vision, led to the development of the early primate line of descendants. Humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees were the last species to develop their own branches, from which the human line branched off into many different dead-end lines and closely related species, but the most direct line lead from the Australopithecine species, then evolving into the Homo lines. Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis were the first direct ancestors, with increased cranial capacity. [2] It should be noted that the exact place of human ancestors in the evolutionary scheme is challenged nearly every year, and that new categories are emerging so that a conclusive paradigm has yet to be produced.

Since the primary focus of physical anthropology is with human evolution, primatology is a closely linked sub-field of the discipline. Understanding human’s closest relatives, the primates, helps understand the evolutionary process from ape to man. Primatologists, such as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, have pioneered research observing primates in the wild, noting behavior that would have been common to human ancestors.

Not all physical anthropologists deal with the far past and hominid variants of the Homo sapiens line. Forensic anthropologists are used around the world to identify the remains of murder and disaster victims. One of the most famous forensic anthropologists, Clyde Snow, made his career identifying the remains of mass murders and genocides in war-torn countries. [3]

Another emerging sub-discipline is population genetics, which tracks and studies contemporary groups of people and the physical/genetic differences between modern-day people, which similar studies had in the early and mid-twentieth century proved that notions of race were scientifically unsubstantial. One of the major discoveries in the field was how to track lineage through mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes, in effect, to tracking the origins of the modern humankind to human’s African genetic ancestors.

Other sub-fields of the discipline include:

Cultural Anthropology

Main article: Cultural anthropology

The primary focus of cultural anthropology, also referred to as social anthropology and ethnology, is the study of human culture. In regards to humanity, culture can deal with a host of subjects, such as religion, mythology, art, music, government systems, social structures and hierarchies, family dynamics, traditions, and customs as well as cuisine, economy, and relationship to the environment. Any and all of these factors make up important aspects of culture and behavior, and are some of the pieces of human history that cultural anthropology tries to put to together into a larger, more comprehensive picture of the human experience.

With the rise of history and humanities studies, along with the natural sciences, during the nineteenth century, such scholars as Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer began to plant the seeds of cultural anthropology, wondering why people living in different parts of the world sometimes had similar beliefs and practices. This question became the underlying concern of cultural anthropology. Grafton Elliot Smith argued that different groups must somehow have learned from one another, as if cultural traits were being spread from one place to another, or “diffused.” Others argued that different groups had the capability of inventing similar beliefs and practices independently. Some of those who advocated "independent invention," like Lewis Henry Morgan, additionally supposed that similarities meant that different groups had passed through the same stages of cultural evolution.

Ethnography, the backbone of cultural anthropology methodology, was developed by Bronislaw Malinowski in his work in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia between 1915 and 1918. Although nineteenth-century ethnologists saw "diffusion" and "independent invention" as mutually exclusive and competing theories, most ethnographers quickly reached a consensus that both processes occur, and that both can plausibly account for cross-cultural similarities.

In the 1950s and mid-1960s, anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the natural sciences. Some anthropologists, such as Lloyd Fallers and Clifford Geertz, focused on processes of modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as Julian Steward and Leslie White, focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche—an approach popularized by Marvin Harris. Economic anthropology through the influence of Karl Polanyi focused on how traditional economics ignored cultural and social factors. In England, British social anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as Max Gluckman and Peter Worsley experimented with Marxism and others incorporated Lévi-Strauss's structuralism into their work.

Structuralism also influenced a number of developments in the 1960s and 1970s, including cognitive anthropology and componential analysis. Authors such as David Schneider, Clifford Geertz, and Marshall Sahlins developed a more fleshed-out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification, which proved very popular within and beyond the discipline. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through the Algerian War of Independence and opposition to the Vietnam War. By the 1970s, the authors of volumes such as Reinventing Anthropology worried about anthropology's relevance.

In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in Eric Wolf's Europe and the People without History, were central to the discipline. Books like Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of theorists such as Michel Foucault moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. Gender and human sexuality became popular topics, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, and the relationship between social structure and individual agency.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, authors such as George Marcus and James Clifford pondered ethnographic authority, particularly how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. Ethnographies became more reflexive, explicitly addressing the author's methodology and cultural positioning, and their influence on his or her ethnographic analysis. This was part of a more general trend of postmodernism that was popular contemporaneously. Currently, anthropologists have begun to pay attention to globalization, medicine and biotechnology, indigenous rights, and the anthropology of industrialized societies.

Sub-fields include:

  • Anthropology of art
  • Anthropology of religion
  • Applied anthropology
  • Cross-cultural studies
  • Cyber anthropology
  • Economic anthropology
  • Ecological anthropology
  • Ethnobotany
  • Ethnography
  • Ethnomusicology
  • Ethnozoology
  • Psychological anthropology (also known as culture-and-personality studies)
  • Political anthropology
  • Urban anthropology
  • Visual anthropology

Archaeology

Main article: Archaeology
Monte Albán archeological site

Archaeology studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. While there are numerous goals pertaining to its various sub-disciplines, the main goal of archaeology is to create the most thorough understanding of how and why both historical and prehistoric people lived, to understand the evolution of human society and civilizations, and to use knowledge of human ancestors’ history to discover insights into modern-day societies. Through such efforts, it is hoped that archaeology will support increased understanding among the various peoples of the world, and thus aid in the growth of peace and harmony among all humankind.

Archaeology as a serious academic discipline did not emerge until the end of the nineteenth century, the byproduct of a number of scientific discoveries and new theories. The discovery that the Earth was older than previously understood, and therefore that humankind had been around longer than the established timeframe of the Bible, spurred scientific curiosity in exploring human origins. Similarly, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859) introduced the theory of evolution, inciting a furor of academic debate and research. Even more important for archaeology was C. J. Thomsen’s establishment of the "Three Age System," in which man’s history was categorized into three eras based on technological advancement: the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The chronological history of humankind became an exciting academic field. Soon, teams of archaeologists were working around the world, discovering long-lost ruins and cities. [4]

Archaeology took form in the 1960s, when a number of academics, most notably Lewis Binford, proposed a "new archaeology," which would be more "scientific" and "anthropological." It began using hypothesis testing and scientific methods, such as the newly established dating tests, as well as focusing upon the social aspects of the findings. Archaeology became less focused on categorizing, and more on understanding how the evolution of civilization came about, later being dubbed “processual archaeology.”

In the 1980s, a new movement arose, led by the British archaeologists Michael Shanks, Christopher Tilley, Daniel Miller, and Ian Hodder, questioning processualism's appeals to science and impartiality, and emphasizing the importance of relativism, becoming known as post-processual archaeology. Further adaptation and innovation in archaeology has continued.

Contemporary sub-fields of archaeology include:

  • Ariel Archaeology
  • Archaeoastronomy
  • Archaeological Science
  • Archaeobotany
  • Archaeozoology
  • Computational Archaeology
  • Ethnoarchaeology
  • Experimental Archaeology
  • Landscape Archaeology
  • Maritime Archaeology
  • Museum Studies
  • Paleopathology
  • Taphonomy

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropology is rooted largely in general linguistic studies which deals with the components of language, mainly phonetics, morphology, and even the kinesics of language. Linguistic anthropology grew out of cultural anthropology, when anthropologists realized what information the study of language can bring.

The first main branch of the discipline is historical linguistics, which studies the evolution of language. All languages have a genealogical tree structure that shows their evolution. For instance, modern English comes from a combination of French, Latin, and Germanic sources, which can all traces their roots back to a common origin, the Indo-European language from the steppes of Russia. The ability of anthropological linguists to trace a language's origins based on the morphological and phonetic changes also can be used to track human migration patterns. Lexicostatistical dating is the technique used for migration tracing, and one of the most famous examples is the pattern of Native American settlement thousands of years ago on such a linguistic approach.

The second major linguistic study in anthropology is called ethnolinguistics. There are two historically different approaches in the discipline, the first being the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," proposed in the mid-twentieth century by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. They argued that "Each language provides particular grooves of linguistic expression that predispose speakers of that language to perceive the world in a certain way. ... The picture of the universe shifts from tongue to tongue."[5] The other approach generally accepts that culture and language predispose people to particular perspectives, but regards language as a continually evolving phenomena that is constantly consuming different influences and changing the society's perspective. Both perspectives agree that language, as one of humankind's most distinguishing features, is a valuable source of information about culture and psychology, capable of revealing the abstract and cognitive aspects of our minds.

Politics of anthropology

Anthropology, as the study of humankind in all its dimensions, has necessarily been involved in social issues. Anténor Firmin wrote De l'égalité des races humaines (1885) as a direct rebuttal to Count de Gobineau’s polemical four-volume work Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines (1853–1855), which asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color. Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that "all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal" (450). Firmin grew up in Haiti, and was admitted to the Societé d’ Anthropologie de Paris in 1884, while serving as a diplomat. His persuasive critique and rigorous analysis of many of that society’s leading scholars made him an early pioneer in the so-called vindicationist struggle in anthropology. Many scholars also associate his work with the very first ideas of Pan-Africanism.

American cultural anthropology developed during the first four decades of the twentieth century under the powerful influence of Franz Boas and his students, and their struggle against racial determinism and the ethnocentrism of nineteenth-century cultural evolutionism. With the additional impact of the Great Depression and World War II, American anthropology developed a pronounced liberal-left tone by the 1950s. The "politics of anthropology" has become a pervasive concern since that time. Whatever the realities, the notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects has become a significant topic for debate.

Explicitly political concerns have to do with anthropologists’ entanglements with government intelligence agencies, on the one hand, and anti-war politics on the other. Franz Boas publicly objected to U.S. participation in World War I, and after the war he published a brief exposé and condemnation of the participation of several American archaeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists. But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the "Axis" (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces, but others worked in intelligence (for example, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of War Information). David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists for their vocal left-wing sympathies. Many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War years, and a great many resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. In the decades since the Vietnam war, the tone of cultural and social anthropology, at least, has been increasingly politicized, reflecting Marxist, feminist, post-colonial, postmodern, and Foucaultian perspectives.

Notes

  1. See, for instance, the writing of Auguste Comte.
  2. Bernard G. Campbell, James D. Loy, and Kathryn Cruz-Uribe, Humankind Emerging (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2005, ISBN 978-0205423804).
  3. William A. Haviland, Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride, Anthropology: The Human Challenge (Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0495810841), 10.
  4. Paul Bahn and Colin Renfrew, Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008, ISBN 978-0500287132), 25–34.
  5. Haviland et. al., 381.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Asad, Talal. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Ithaca, NY: Ithaca Press, 1973. ISBN 0903729016
  • Bahn, Paul, and Colin Renfrew, Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008. ISBN 978-0500287132
  • Campbell, Bernard G., James D. Loy, and Kathryn Cruz-Uribe. Humankind Emerging. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2005. ISBN 978-0205423804
  • Darnell, Regna. Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. ISBN 0803266294
  • Desai, Gaurav. Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. ISBN 0822326353
  • Haviland, William A., Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride, Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010. ISBN 978-0495810841
  • Lewis, Herbert S. "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences." American Anthropologist 100 (1998).
  • Lewis, Herbert S. "Imagining Anthropology's History." Reviews in Anthropology 33 (2004).
  • Lewis, Herbert S. "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History.” In Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I, edited by Regna Darnell and Frederick W. Gleach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0803266575
  • Pels, Peter, and Oscar Salemink. Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology. Ann Arbor: MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000. ISBN 0472087460
  • Price, David. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. ISBN 0822333260
  • Rabinow, Paul. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977. ISBN 0520035291
  • Trencher, Susan. Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960–1980. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2000. ISBN 0897896734

External links

All links retrieved October 4, 2012.



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