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ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropology (derived from the Greek words άνθρωπος
or anthropos ['human' or 'person'] and logia
['study']) is the field devoted to the comparative study of
humans, from its beginnings millions of years ago to
the present day and in a variety of locales. It
revolves around the following basic questions: what does it mean to
be human, how are we different from other species and
from each other? The field is traditionally distinguished
from other social sciences by its emphasis on cultural
relativity, the in-depth examination of social,
historical and geographical context, and
the use of cross-cultural comparisons.
Ethnography (from
the Greek
θνος
or ethnos [people] and
γράφειν
or graphein [writing]) is concerned
with the study of single groups through
direct contact, in the form of field
studies, with the culture in question.
Ethnology
involves the systematic comparison of the
folklore, beliefs and practices of different
societies on the basis of the information
acquired by ethnographers. The field is divided into several branches:
Sub-Fields:
Archaeology or Material Anthropology is the study of
the prehistory and early history of a culture and its development
through the exploration, discovery, excavation, dating, and
methodological analysis of the material remains of a culture.
Biololgical or Physical or Evolutionary Anthropology studies the mechanisms
of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and
variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of
human evolution. It looks at Homo Sapiens as a
genus and species, tracing its biological origins, evolutionary
development, and genetic diversity. Biological anthropologists
study the biocultural prehistory of Homo to understand human nature
and, ultimately, the evolution of the brain and
nervous system itself. Evolutionary Psychology
(see below) is a related sub-field.
Cultural Anthropology (a largely American
phenomenon) has largely concerned itself with the distinct
ways people in different locales experience, interpret and
express (especially in symbolic forms such as art and myths)
their lives as well as the ways in which larger regional and
global forces impinge upon such local contexts. Its
alter ego, Social Anthropology (a mainly European
phenomenon), has tended to focus on observed social behaviours and on
social structure, that is, on the relationships between the social
roles performed by individuals (e.g. husband and wife, or parent and
child) and social institutions (e.g. religion, the economy, and
politics).
Concepts:
Cultural Relativism: the principle that an
individual human's beliefs and activities should be
understood in terms of his or her own culture.
Kinship is the most basic principle of
organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and
categories.
Paradigms:
(Sociocultural) Evolutionism represented
an attempt to formalise social thinking along
scientific lines, later influenced by the biological
theory of evolution. If organisms could
develop over time according to discernible,
deterministic laws, then it seemed reasonable that
societies could as well. Evolutionists
developed analogies between human society and the
biological organism and introduced into sociological
theory such biological concepts as variation,
natural selection, and inheritance -- evolutionary
factors resulting in the progress of societies
through stages of savagery and barbarism to
civilization, by virtue of the survival of the
fittest. Together with the idea of progress
there grew the notion of fixed 'stages' through
which human societies progress, usually numbering
three -- savagery, barbarism, and civilization --
but sometimes many more. Some evolutionists
also perceived in the growth stages of each
individual a recapitulation of these stages of
society. Strange customs were thus accounted
for on the assumption that they were throwbacks to
earlier useful practices. Evolutionism marked
the beginning of anthropology as a scientific
discipline and a departure from traditional
religious views of "primitive" cultures. The
Neo-Evolutionism of Steward and White seeks
to explain the evolution of societies by drawing on
the Darwinist theory of evolution but in the process
discarding some of the a priori assumptions of the
Evolutionism of Morgan and Tyler.
Functionalist Anthropology is view that
any culture comprises an interrelated whole, not a
collection of isolated elements, in which each
element performs a particular function in ensuring
the coherence of the society in question.
Historical Particularism: the view that
each culture is the product of a specific process of
historical and social development and must
accordingly be understood on the basis of empirical
exploration rather than a priori assumptions.
Hermeneutic-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology is a diverse set of
approaches within cultural anthropology that view culture as a
symbolic system that arises primarily from human interpretations of
the world.
Psychological Anthropology studies the
interaction of culture and mental processes. In
particular, psychological anthropologists tend to focus on ways
in which humans' development and enculturation within a
particular cultural group, with its own history, language,
practices, and conceptual categories, shape processes of human
cognition, emotion, perception, motivation, and mental health.
Cognitive Anthropology is
a field of
anthropology that, drawing on Cognitive Science especially,
is concerned with how and what people know.
It stresses how different peoples make sense of
reality by classifying objects and events according to cognitive
categories that are partly inherited from the culture in
question and partly innate in all humans.
A basic premise is that people think with the aid of
schemas, units of culturally shared knowledge that are
hypothesized to be represented in the brain as networks
of neural connections.
Culture and Personality
seeks to "determine the range of personality types
extant in a given culture and to discern where, on a
continuum from ideal to perverse, the culture places
each type. The type perceived as ideal within a
culture is then referred to as the 'personality' of the
culture itself, as with duty-bound stoicism among the
English and personal restraint among traditional Pueblo
Indians" (Encyclopedia Britannica).
Schools of Thought:
Marxist or Critical or Materialist Anthropology:
Cultural Materialism is an anthropological
approach based on the premise that "human social life is a
response to the practical problems of earthly existence"
(Marvin Harris 1979: xv).
Psychoanalytic Anthropology (see
Psychoanalysis)
Structuralist Anthropology is the view
that the particular form taken by any culture
(cultural paroles) is informed by an underlying
universal grammar (cultural langue), predicated on
the inter-relationship of binary opposites which is
fundamental to the workings of human consciousness
in general.
Sub-Fields:
Economic Anthropology attempts to explain
human economic behavior using the tools of both
economics and anthropology. There are three
major paradigms within the field of economic
anthropology: formalism (the one most closely linked
to neoclassical economics, defining economics as the
study of utility maximisation under conditions of
scarcity; formalists define economics as the logic
of rational action and decision-making, as rational
choice between the alternative uses of limited
(scarce) means); substantivism (the study of how
humans make a living from their social and natural
environment, a society's livelihood strategy being
seen as an adaptation to its environment and
material conditions, a process which may or may not
involve utility maximisation); and culturalism (the
view that models of livelihoods and related economic
concepts such as exchange, money or profit must be
analyzed through the locals' ways of understanding
them. Rather than devising universal models
rooting in Western understandings and using Western
economic terminologies and then applying them
indiscriminately to all societies, one should come
to understand the 'local model').
Medical Anthropology examines the ways in
which culture and society impacts on and are
impacted by issues of health, health care and
related issues.
Philosophical Anthropology refers to the
philosophical, rather than specifically
anthropological, discipline that inquires
into the essence of human nature and the human
condition.
Political Anthropology examines the
structure of political systems from an
anthropological perspective.
Linguistic
anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies humans
through the languages that they use.
Anthropological linguistics examines the
history, evolution, and internal structure of human languages
through human genetics and human development. It studies
prehistoric links between different societies, and explores the use
and meaning of verbal concepts with which humans communicate and
reason. Linguistic anthropologists seek to explain the very
nature of language itself, including hidden connections between
language, the brain, and behaviour.
ASSOCIATIONS
- General:
- Archaeology:
- Biological / Physical Anthropology:
- Cultural / Social Anthropology:
-
General:
- Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
- General:
- Cognitive Anthropology:
- Culture and Personality:
- Schools of Thought:
- Linguistic Anthropology:
- Applied Anthropology:
CONFERENCES
2010:
2009:
- The Encultured Brain:
Neuroanthropological Explorations, First Neuroanthropology
Conference, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,
October 8
2008:
- Annual Meeting,
American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November
19-23
2007:
2006:
2005:
2004:
2003:
2002:
2001:
2000:
Annual:
COURSES
- General:
- Archaeology:
- Biological / Physical Anthropology:
- Cultural / Social Anthropology:
-
General:
- Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
- General:
- Cognitive Anthropology:
- Culture and Personality:
- Schools of Thought:
- Linguistic Anthropology:
- Applied Anthropology:
- Philosophical Anthropology:
JOURNALS
- General:
- Archaeology:
- Antiquity: a Quarterly Review of World
Archaeology
- Biological / Physical Anthropology:
- Cultural / Social Anthropology:
-
General:
- Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
-
General:
- Cognitive Anthropology:
- Culture and Personality:
- Schools of Thought:
- Linguistic Anthropology:
- Applied Anthropology:
PERSONS
Archaeology:
Biological / Physical Anthropology:
Cultural / Social Anthropology:
-
In Chronological Order:
- By Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
- Cognitive Anthropology:
-
Ward Goodenough (1919 - )
-
Anthony Francis Clarke Wallace (1923 - )
-
Harold C. Conklin (1926 - )
-
Stephen A. Tyler (1932
- )
-
Dan Sperber (1942 - )
-
Roy D'Andrade ( - )
- Culture and Personality:
- By School of Thought:
Linguistic Anthropology:
Applied Anthropology:
SOURCES: PRIMARY
Book Series:
Off-Line:
On-Line:
SOURCES: SECONDARY
Off-Line:
On-Line:
- General:
- Archaeology:
- Biological / Physical Anthropology:
- Cultural / Social Anthropology:
- General:
- Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
- General:
- Cognitive Anthropology:
- Culture and Personality:
- Schools of Thought:
- Linguistic Anthropology:
- Applied Anthropology:
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES / RESEARCH CENTRES / RESEARCH
PROJECTS
Australasia:
Canada:
Europe:
-
Belarus:
- Belgium:
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven / Université Catholique de
Louvain: Faculté des Sciences Philosophiques:
-
Germany:
-
Netherlands:
-
UK:
USA:
WWW GATEWAYS
- General:
- Archaeology:
- Biological / Physical Anthropology:
- Cultural / Social Anthropology:
-
General:
- Paradigms:
- Evolutionism:
- Functionalist Anthropology:
- Hermeneutical-Interpretive-Rhetorical-Symbolic Anthropology:
- Historical Particularism:
- Psychological Anthropology:
- Schools of Thought:
- Linguistic Anthropology:
- Applied Anthropology:
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