Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anthropology: Anthropology – study of humankind. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences – humanities – and the social sciences. [1] The term was first used by François Péron when discussing his encounters with Tasmanian Aborigines. [2]
Anthropological theories of value attempt to expand on the traditional theories of value used by economists or ethicists.They are often broader in scope than the theories of value of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, etc. usually including sociological, political, institutional, and historical perspectives (transdisciplinarity).
However, as anthropology has developed Linnaeus' classifications have proven incompatible with the reality of human differentiation stemming from a cultural basis. Humans tend to be distinguishable, and distinguish themselves, according to their cultural norms, principally language, dress, aesthetics, and social attitudes.
The purpose of symbolic and interpretive anthropology can be described through a term used often by Geertz that originated from Gilbert Ryle, "Thick Description."By this what is conveyed, is that since culture and behavior can only be studied as a unit, studying culture and its smaller sections of the structure, thick description is what details the interpretation of those belonging to a ...
The combination of American cultural anthropology theory with British social anthropology methods has led to some confusion between the concepts of "society" and "culture." For most anthropologists, these are distinct concepts. Society refers to a group of people; culture refers to a pan-human capacity and the totality of non-genetic human ...
Nevertheless, key aspects of feminist theory and methods became de rigueur as part of the 'post-modern moment' in anthropology: Ethnographies became more interpretative and reflexive, [25] explicitly addressing the author's methodology; cultural, gendered, and racial positioning; and their influence on the ethnographic analysis.
British anthropologist, E. R. Leach, went beyond the instrumentalist argument of Radcliffe-Brown's structural-functionalism, which approached social norms, kinship, etc. in functionalist terms rather than as social fields, or arenas of contestation. According to Leach, "the nicely ordered ranking of lineage seniority conceals a vicious element ...
Structural anthropology is a school of sociocultural anthropology based on Claude Lévi-Strauss' 1949 idea that immutable deep structures exist in all cultures, and consequently, that all cultural practices have homologous counterparts in other cultures, essentially that all cultures are equatable.